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iv 




I 



THE 


REDSKINS; 

✓ 

I 

OB, 

N D I A N AND I N 'J I N 

BEING THE CONCLUSION OF THE 

l^itilEjiagt 3Ilnmi3cri|ife. 



BY Jr'FENIMORE 


COOPER. 


In every work regard the writer’s end; 

None e'er can compass more than they intend, — Fopt» 


IN TWO VOLUMES. 
VOL. I. 



NEW EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 

STRINGER AND TOWNSEND. 


1852. 



— ^ — 






Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

in the clerk’s ofRce of the District Court for the Northern District 
of l/ew York. 


PREFACE 


i ! 

! This book closes the series of the Littlepage Ma- 
I nuscripts, which have been given to the world, as 
containing a fair account of the comparative sacri- 
fices of time, money and labour, made respectively by 
the landlord and the tenants, on a New York estate ; 
together with the manner in which usages and opi- 
nions are changing among us ; as well as certain of 
the reasons of these changes. The discriminating 
reader will probably be able to trace in these narra- 
tives the progress of those innovations on the great 
laws of morals which are becoming so very manifest 
in connection with this interest, setting at naught 
the plainest principles that God has transmitted to I 
man for the government of his conduct, and all under j 
the extraordinary pretence of favouring liberty ! In j 

j this downward course, our picture embraces some | 

I of the proofs of that looseness of views on the subject | 

j of certain species of property which is, in a degree | 

! perhaps, inseparable from the semi-barbarous condi- ; 

j tion of a new settlement ; the gradation of the squat- | 

I ter, from him who merely makes his pitch to crop a : 

i few fields in passing, to him who carries on the busi- i 

i ness by wholesale ; and last, though not least in this | 

catalogue of marauders, the anti-renter. ! 

It would be idle to deny that the great principle 
which lies at the bottom of anti-rentism, if principle 

(iii) 

, i 


IV 


PREFACE. 


it can be called, is the assumption of a claim that the 
interests and wishes of numbers are to be respected, 
though done at a sacrifice of the clearest rights of the 
few. That this is not liberty, but tyranny in its worst 
form, every right-thinking and right-feeling man must 
be fully aware. Every one who knows much of the 
history of the past, and of the influence of classes, 
must understand, that whenever the educated, the 
I affluent and the practised, choose to unite their means 
of combination and money to control the political 
destiny of a country, they become irresistible; making 
the most subservient tools of those very masses who 
vainly imagine they are the true guardians of their 
own liberties. The well-known election of 1840 is a 
memorable instance of the power of such a combina- 
tion; though that w^as a combination formed mostly 
for the mere purposes of faction, sustained perhaps 
by the desperate designs of the insolvents of the 
country. Such a combination was necessarily want- 
ing in union among the affluent ; it had not the high 
support of principles to give it sanctity, and it affords 
little more than the proof of the power of money and 
leisure, when applied in a very doubtful cause, in 
wielding the masses of a great nation, to be the in- 
struments of their own subjection. No well-inten- 
tioned American legislator, consequently, ought ever 
to lose sight of the fact, that each invasion of the 
right which he sanctions is a blow struck against 
liberty itself, which, in a country like this, has no 
auxiliary so certain or so powerful as justice. 

The State of New York contains about 43,000 
square miles of land ; or something like 27,000,000 
of acres. In 1783, its population must have been 


PREFACE. 


V 


about 200,000 souls. With such a proportion be- 
tween people and surface it is unnecessary to prove 
that the husbandman was not quite as dependent on 
the landholder, as the landholder was dependent on 
the husbandman. This would have been true, had 
the State been an island; but we all know it was 
surrounded by many other communities similarly 
situated, and that nothing else was so abundant as 
land. All notions of exactions and monopolies, there- 
fore, must be untrue, as applied to those two interests 
^ at that day. 

In 1786-7, the State of New York, then in posses- 
sion of all powers on the subject, abolished entails, 
and otherwise brought its law of real estate in har- 
mony with the institutions. At that time, hundreds, 
perhaps thousands, of the leases which have since 
1 become so obnoxious, were in existence. With the 
I attention of the State drawn directly to the main 
I subject, no one saw anything incompatible with the 
I institutions in them. It was felt that the landlords 
had bought the tenants to occupy their lands by the 
liberality of their concessions, and that the latter were 
the obliged parties. Had the landlords of that day 
endeavoured to lease for one year, or for ten years, 
I no tenants could have been found for wild lands; but 
I it became a different thing, when the owner of the 
I soil agreed to part with it for ever, in consideration 
I of a very low rent, granting six or eight years free 
I from any charge whatever, and consenting to receive 
I the product of the soil itself in lieu of money. Then, 
I indeed, men were not only willing to come into the 
! terms, but eager; the best evidence of which is the 
i fact, that the same tenants might have bought land. 


Vi 


PREFACE. 


out and out, in every direction around them, had 
they not preferred the easier terms of the leases. 
Now, that these same men, or their successors, have 
become rich enough to care more to be rid of the 
encumbrance of the rent than to keep their money, 
the rights of the parties certainly are not altered. 

I In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went 
I into operation ; New York being a party to its creation 
. and conditions. By that Constitution, the State de- 
r liberately deprived itself of the power to touch the 
covenants of these leases, without conceding the 
I power to any other government; unless it might be 
through a change of the Constitution itself. As a 
i necessary consequence, these leases, in a legal sense, 

I belong to the institutions of New York, instead of 
1 being opposed to them. Not only is the spirit of the 
I institutions in harmony with these leases, but sO As 
! the letter also. Men must draw a distinction between 
the ‘‘spirit of the institutions” and their own “spi- 
rits;” the latter being often nothing more than a 
stomach that is not easily satisfied. It would be just 
as true to affirm that domestic slavery is opposed to 
the institutions of the United States, as to say the 
same of these leases. It would be just as rational to 
maintain, because A. does not choose to make an as- 
sociate of B., that he is acting in opposition to the 
“ spirit of the institutions,” inasmuch as the Declara- 
tion of Independence advances the dogmas that men 
are born equal, as it is to say it is opposed to the 
same spirit, for B. to pay rent to* A. according to his 
covenant. 

I It is pretended that the durable leases are feuda. 
in their nature. We do not conceive this to be true 


PREFACE. 


vii 

but, admitting it to be so, it would only prove that 
feudality, to this extent, is a part of the institutions 
of the State. What is more, it would become a part 
over which the State itself has conceded all power 
of control, beyond that which it may remotely pos- 
sess as one, out of twenty-eight communities. As 
respects’ this feudal feature, it is not easy to say 
where it must be looked for. It is not to be found in 
the simple fact of paying rent, for that is so general 
as to render the whole country feudal, could it be 
true; it cannot be in the circumstance that the rent 
is to be paid “ in kind,” as it is called, and in labour, 
for that is an advantage to the tenant, by affording 
him the option, since the penalty of a failure leaves 
the alternative of paying in money. It must be, there- 
fore, that these leases are feudal because they run for 
evv.. ! Now the length of the lease is clearly a con- 
cession to the tenant, and was so regarded when re- 
ceived ; and there is not probably a single tenant, 
under lives, who would not gladly exchange his term 
of possession for that of one of these detestable dura- 
ble leases ! 

Among the absurdities that have been circulated 
on this subject of feudality, it has been pretended 
that the well-known English statute of quia cmp- 
tores” has prohibited fines for alienation; or that the 
quarter-sales, fifth-sales, sixth-sales, (fee. of our own 
leases were contrary to the law of the realm, when 
made. Under the common law, in certain cases of 
feudal tenures, the fines for alienation were an inci- 
dent of the tenure. The statute of quia emptores 
abolished that general principle, but it in no manner 
forbade parties to enter into covenants of the nature I 


viii 


PREFACE. 


of quarter -sales i did they see fit. The common law 
gives all the real estate to the eldest son. Our statute 
divides the real estate among the nearest of kin, with- 
out regard even to sex. It might just as well be 
pretended that the father cannot devise all his lands 
to his eldest son, under our statute, as to say that 
the law of Edward L prevents parties from bargain^ 
ing for quarter-sales. Altering a provision of the 
common law does not preclude parties from making 
covenants similar to its ancient provisions. 

Feudal tenures were originally divided into two 
great classes ; those which were called the military 
tenures, or knight’s service, and soccage. The first 
tenure was that which became oppressive in the pro- 
gress of society. Soccage was of two kinds ; free and 
villian. The first has an affinity to our own system, 
as connected with these leases ; the last never existed 
among us at all. When the knight’s service, or mili- 
tary tenures of England were converted into free 
soccage, in the reign of Charles II., the concession 
was considered of a character so favourable to liberty 
as to be classed among the great measures of the 
time; one of which was the habeas corpus act ! 

The only feature of our own leases, in the least 
approaching villian soccage,’’ is that of the “day’s 
works.” But every one acquainted with the habits 
of American life, will understand that husbandmen, 
in general, throughout the northern States, would 
regard it as an advantage to be able to pay their 
debts in this way ; and the law gives them an option, 
since a failure to pay “ in kind,” or in “ work,” merely 
incurs the forfeiture of paying what the particular 
thing is worth, in money. In point of fact, money 


PREFACE. 




has always been received for these ** day’s works,” 
and at a stipulated price. 

But, it is pretended, whatever may be the equity 
of these leasehold contracts, they are offensive to the 
tenants, and ought to be abrogated, for the peace of 
the State. The State is bound to make all classes of 
men respect its laws, and in nothing more so than in 
the fulfilment of their legal contracts. The greater 
the number of the offenders, the higher the obligation 
to act with decision and efficiency. To say that these 
disorganizers ought not to be put dowm, is to say that 
crime is to obtain impunity by its own extent ; and 
to say that they cannot be put down under our form 
of government,” is a direct admission that the govern 
ment is unequal to the discharge of one of the plainest 
and commonest obligations of all civilized society. 
If this be really so, the sooner we get rid of the pre- 
sent form of government the better. The notion of 
remedying such an evil by concession, is as puerile 
as it is dishonest. The larger the concessions become, 
the greater will be the exactions of a cormorant 
cupidity. As soon as quiet is obtained by these 
means, in reference to the leasehold tenures, it will 
be demanded by some fresh combination to attain 
some other end. 

When Lee told Washington, at Monmouth, ‘*Sir, 
your troops will not stand against British grena- 
diers,” Washington is said to have answered, ‘‘Sir, 
you have never tried them.” The same reply might 
be given to those miserable traducers of this republic, 
who, in order to obtain votes, affect to think there is 
not sufficient energy in its government to put down 
so bare-faced an attempt as this of the anti-renters 
VoL. I. — 1 


X 


PREFACE. 


to alter the conditions of their own leases to suit their 
own convenience. The county of Delaware has, of 
itself, nobly given the lie to the assertion, the honest 
portion of its inhabitants scattering the knaves to the 
four winds, the moment there was a fair occasion made 
for them to act. A. single, energetic proclamation 
from Albany, calling a “ spade a spade,’^ and not 
aflfecting to gloss over the disguised robbery of these 
anti-renters, and laying just principles fairly before 
the public mind, would of itself have crushed the 
evil in its germ. The people of New York, in their 
general capacity, are not the knaves their servants 
evidently suppose. 

The assembly of New York, in its memorable ses- 
sion of 1846, has taxed the rents on long leases ; thus, 
not only taxing the same property twice, but imposing 
the worst sort of income-tax, or one aimed at a few 
individuals. It has “ thimble-rigged’* in its legisla- 
tion, as Mr. Hugh Littlepage not unaptly terms it ; 
endeavouring to do that indirectly, which the Con- 
stitution will not permit it to do directly. In other 
words, as it can pass no direct law ‘‘ impairing the 
obligation of contracts,” while it can regulate de- 
scents, it has enacted, so far as one body of the legis- 
lature has power to enact anything, that on the death 
of a landlord the tenant may convert his lease into a 
mortgage, on discharging which he shall hold his 
land in fee ! 

We deem the first of these measures far more 
tyrannical than the attempt of Great Britain to tax 
her colonies, which brought about the revolution. It 
is of the same general character, that of unjust taxa- 
tion ; while it is attended by circumstances of aggra* 


PREFACE. 


XI 


vation that were altogether wanting in the policy of 
the mother country. This is not a tax for revenue, 
which is not needed ; but a tax to choke off’^ the 
landlords, to use a common American phrase. It is 
clearly taxing nothing, or it is taxing the same pro- 
perty twice. It is done to conciliate three or four 
thousand voters, who are now in the market, at the ! 
expense of three or four hundred who, it is known, | 
are not to be bought. It is unjust in its motives, its j 
means and its end. The measure is discreditable to i 
civilization, and an outrage on liberty. 

But, the other law mentioned is an atrocity so | 
grave, as to alarm every man of common principle j 
in the State, were it not so feeble in its devices to | 
cheat the Constitution, as to excite contempt. This 1 
extraordinary power is exercised because the legis- \ 
lature can control the law of descents, though it ( 
cannot “ impair the obligation of contracts ]” Had j 
the law said at once that on the death of a landlord 
each of his tenants should own his farm in fee, the j 
ensemble of the fraud would have been preserved, 
since the ‘‘ law of descents’^ would have been so far 
regulated as to substitute one heir for another ; but 
changing the nature of a contract, with a party who i 
has nothing to do with the succession at all, is not so | 
very clearly altering, or amending, the law of de- j 
scents ! It is scarcely necessary to say that every ! 
reputable court in the country, whether State or | 
Federal, would brand such a law with the disgrace | 
it merits. 

But the worst feature of this law, or attempted j 
(aw, remains to be noticed. It would have been a j 
premium on murder. Mu»’der has already been 


Xli PREFACE. 

committed by these anti-renters, and that obviously 
to effect their ends; and they were to be told that 
whenever you shoot a landlord, as some have already 
often shot at them, you can convert your leasehold 
tenures into tenures in fee ! The mode of valuation 
is so obvious, too, as to deserve a remark. A master 
was to settle the valuation on testimony. The wit- 
nesses of course would be ‘‘ the neighbours,” and a 
whole patent could swear for each other ! 

As democrats we protest most solemnly against 
such bare-faced frauds, such palpable cupidity and 
covetousness being termed anything but what they 
are. If they come of any party at all, it is the party 
of the devil. Democracy is a lofty and noble senti- 
ment. It does not rob the poor to make the rich 
richer, nor the rich to favour the poor. It is just, and 
treats all men alike. It does not “ impair the obliga- 
tions of contracts.” It is not the friend of a canting 
legislation, but, meaning right, dare act directly. 
There is no greater delusion ‘than to suppose that 
true democracy has anything in common with injus- 
tice or roguery. 

Nor is it an apology for anti-rentism, in any of 
I {ts aspects, to say that leasehold tenures are inexpe- 
j dient. The most expedient thing in existence is to 
do right. Were there no other objection to this anti- 
rent movement than its corrupting influence, that 
alone should set every wise man in the community 
firmly against it. We have seen too much of this 
earth, to be so easily convinced that there is any 
disadvantage, nay that there is not a positive advan- 
tage in the existence of large leasehold estates, when 
they carry with them no political power, as is the 


PREFACE. 


xiii 

fact here. The common-place argument against them, 
that they defeat the civilization of a country, is not 
sustained by fact. The most civilized countries on 
earth are under this system ; and this system, too, 
not entirely free from grave objections which do not 
exist among ourselves. That a poorer class of citizens 
have originally leased than have purchased lands in 
New York, is probably true; and it is equally proba- 
ble that the effects of this poverty, and even of the 
tenure in the infancy of a country, are to be traced 
on the estates. But this is taking a very one-sided 
view of the matter. The men who became tenants 
in moderate but comfortable circumstances, would 
have been mostly labourers on the farms of others, 
but for these leasehold tenures. That is the benefit 
of the system in a new country, and the ultra friend 
of humanity, who decries the condition of a tenant, 
should remember that if he had not been in this very 
condition, he might have been in a worse. It is, in- 
deed, one of the proofs of the insincerity of those who 
are decrying leases, on account of their aristocratic 
tendencies, that their destruction will necessarily 
condemn a numerous class of agriculturists, either 
to fall back into the ranks of the peasant or day- 
labourer, or to migrate, as is the case with so many 
of the same class in New England. In point of fact, 
the relation of landlord and tenant is one entirely 
natural and salutary, in a wealthy community, and 
one that is so much in accordance with the necessi- 
ties of men, that no legislation can long prevent it. 
A state of things which will not encourage the rich 
lO hold real estate would not be desirable, since it 
would be diverting their money, knowledge, liber- 
1 * 


XIV 


PREFACE. 


ality, feelings and leisure, from the improvement o! 
the soil, to objects neither so useful nor so praise- 
worthy. 

The notion that every husbandman is to be a free- 
holder, is as Utopian in practice, as it would be to 
expect that all men were to be on the same level in 
fortune, condition, education and habits. As such a 
state of things as the last never yet did exist, it was 
probably never designed by divine wisdom that it 
should exist. The whole structure of society must 
be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist 
among ourselves, and the change would not have 
been made a month before the utter impracticability 
of such a social fusion w^ould make itself felt by all. 

We have elsewhere imputed much of the anti-rent 
feeling to provincial education and habits. This term 
has given the deepest offencfe to those who were most 
obnoxious to the charge. Nevertheless, our opinion 
is unchanged. We know that the distance between 
the cataract of Niagara and the Massachusetts line 
is a large hundred leagues, and that it is as great 
between Sandy Hook and the 45th parallel of lati- 
tude. Many excellent things, moral and physical, 
are to be found within these limits, beyond a ques- 
tion ; but we happen to know^ by an experience that 
has extended to other quarters of the world, for a 
term now exceeding forty years, that more are to be 
found beyond them. If ‘‘ honourable gentlemen” at 
Albany fancy the reverse, they must still permit ua 
to Believe they are too much under the influence of 
provincial notions. 


THE KEHSKINS 


CHAPTER I. 

“Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and 
She said — Thou wert my daughter ; and thy father 
Was duke of Milan ; and his only heir 
A princess ; — no worse issued.” 

Tempest. 

My uncle Ro and myself had been travelling together in 
the East, and had been absent from home fully five years, 
when we reached Paris. For eighteen months neither of us 
had seen a line from America, when we drove through the 
barriers, on our way from Egypt, via Algiers, Marseilles, 
and Lyons. Not once, in all that time, had we crossed our 
own track, in a way to enable'' us to pick up a straggling 
letter; and all our previous precautions to have the epistles 
meet us at different bankers in Italy, Turkey, and Malta, 
were thrown away. 

My uncle was an old traveller — I might almost say, an 
old resident — in Europe; for he had passed no less than 
twenty years of his fifty-nine off the American continent. 
A bachelor, with nothing to do but to take care of a very 
ample estate, which was rapidly increasing in value by 
the enormous growth of the town of New York, and with 
tastes early formed by travelling, it was natural he should 
seek those regions where he most enjoyed himself. Hugh 
Roger Littlepage was born in 1786 — the second son of my 
grandfather, Mordaunt Littlepage, and of Ursula Malbone, 
I his wife. My own father, Malbone Littlepage, was the eld- 
est child of that connexion ; and he would have inheri.ed 
I the property of Ravensnest, in virtue of his birthright, had 

( 7 ) 


THE REDSKINS. 


8 

he survived his own parents ; but, dying young, I stepped 
into what would otherwise have been his succession, in my 
eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had got both 
Satanstoe and Lilacsbush ; two country-houses and farms, 
which, while they did not aspire to the dignity of being 
estates, were likely to prove more valuable, in the long run, 
than the broad acres which were intended for the patrimony 
of the elder brother. My grandfather was affluent; for not, 
only had the fortune of the Littlepages centred in him, but 
so did that of the Mordaunts, the wealthier family of the 
two, together with some exceedingly liberal bequests from I 
a certain Col. Dirck Pollock, or Van Valkenburgh ; who, I 

though only a very distant connexion, chose to make my j 

great-grandmother’s, or Anneke Mordaunt’s, descendants I 
his heirs. We all had enough; my aunts having handsome j 

legacies, in the way of bonds and mortgages, on an estate | 

called Mooseridge, in addition to some lots in town ; while j 
my own sister, Martha, had a clear fifty thousand dollars in j 
money. I had towm-lots, also, which were becoming pro- | 
ductive; and a special minority of seven years had made j 
an accumulation of cash that was well vested in New York | 
State stock, and which promised well for the future. I say 1 
a “ special” minority ; for both my father and grandfather, j 
in placing, the one, myself and a portion of the property, 
and the other the remainder of my estate, under the guar- 
dianship and ward of my uncle, had made a provision that 
I was not to come into possession until I had completed my 
twenty-fifih year. 

I left college at twenty ; and my uncle Ro, for so Mar- j 
tha and myself always called him, and so he was always j 
called by some twenty cousins, the offspring of our three | 
aunts ; — but my uncle Ro, when I was done with college, 
proposed to finish my education by travelling. As this was 
only too agreeable to a young man, away we went, just 
after the pressure of the great panic of 1836-7 was over, 
and our “ lots” were in tolerable security, and our stocks ' 
j safe. In America it requires almost as much vigilance to 
i take care of property, as it does industry to acquire it. 

I Mr. Hugh Roger LIttlepage — by the wa)’^, I bore the same ^ 
! name, though I was always called Hugh, while my uncle 
went by the different appellations of Roger, Ro, and Hodge, 


THE REDSKINS. 


9 


r 


I 


1 


i 


i 


i 


among his familiars, as circumstances had rendered the 
associations sentimental, affectionate, or manly — Mr. Hugh 
Roger Littlepage, Senior, then, had a system of his own, in 
the way of aiding the scales to fall from American eyes, by 
means of seeing more clearly than one does, or can, at 
home, let him belong where he may, and in clearing the 
specks of provincialism from off the diamond of republican 
water. He had already seen enough to ascertain that while 
“ our country,” as this blessed nation is very apt on all 
occasions, appropriate or not, to be called by all who belong 
to it, as well as by a good many who do not, could teach a 
great deal to the old world, there was a possibility — ^just a 
possibility, remark, ’is my word — that it might also learn a 
little. With a view, therefore, of acquiring knowledge se- 
riatim, as it might be, he was for beginning with the horn- 
book, and going on regularly up to the belles-lettres and 
mathematics. The manner in which this was effected de- 
serves a notice. 

Most American travellers land in England, the country 
farthest advanced in material civilization ; then proceed to 
Italy, and perhaps to Greece, leaving Germany, and the less 
attractive regions of the north, to come in at the end of the 
chapter. My uncle’s theory was to follow the order of time, 
and to begin with the ancients and end with the moderns ; 
though, in adopting such a rule, he admitted he somewhat 
lessened the pleasure of the novice; since an American, 
fresh from the fresher fields of the western continent, might 
very well find delight in memorials of the past, more espe- 
cially in England, which pall on his taste, and appear insig- 
nificant, after he has become familiar with the Temple of 
Neptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coli- 
seum. I make no doubt that I lost a great deal of passing 
happiness in this way, by beginning ’bt the beginning, or by 
beginning in Italy, and travelling north. 

Such was our course, however; and, landing at Leghorn, 
we did the peninsula effectually in a twelvemonth ; thence 
passed through Spain up to Paris, and proceeded on to Mos- 
cow and the Baltic, reaching England from Plamburg. 
When we had got through with the British isles, the anti- 
quities of which seemed flat and uninteresting to me, after 
having seen those that were so much more antique, wo 


THE REDSKINS. 


10 

returned to Paris, in order that I might become a man of the • 
world, if possible, by rubbing off the provincial specks that | 
had unavoidably adhered to the American diamond while in | 
its obscurity. 

My uncle Ro was fond of Paris, and he had actually | 
become the owner of a small hotel in the faubourg, in which • 
he retained a handsome furnished apartment for his own 
use. The remainder of the house was let to permanent 
tenants ; but the whole of the first floor, and of the entresol^ \ 
remained in his hands. As a special favour, he would allow ^ 
some American family to occupy even his own apartment — ■ | 
or rather appartement^ for the words are not exactly syno- | 
nymous — when he intended to be absent for a term exceed- i 
ing six months, using the money thus obtained in keeping | 
the furniture in repair, and his handsome suite of rooms, j 
including a salon, salle d manger, ante~chamhre, cabinet, 
several chamhres d covcher, and a boudoir — yes, a male , 
boudoir ! for so he affected to call it — in a condition to i 
please even his fastidiousness. ; 

On our arrival from England, we remained an entire sea- i 
son at Paris, all that time rubbing the specks off the diamond, | 
when my uncle suddenly took it into his head that we ought i 
to see the East. He had never been further than Greece, 
himself ; and he now took a fancy to be my companion in 
such an excursion. We were gone two years and a half, 
visiting Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, the Holy Land, 
Petra, the Red Sea, Egypt quite to the second cataracts, and 
nearly the whole of Barbary. The latter region we threw 
in, by way of seeing something out of the common track. 
But so many hats and travelling-caps are to be met with, 
now-a-days, among the turbans, that a well-mannered Chris- 
tian may get along almost anywhere without being spit 
upon. This is a great inducement for travelling generally, 
and ought to be so especially to an American, who, on the 
whole, incurs rather more risk now of suffering this humili. 
ation at home, than he would even in Algiers. But the | 
animus is everything in morals. | 

We had, then, been absent two years and a J.alf from i 
Paris, and had not seen a paper or received a letter from i 
America in eighteen months, when we drove through tha ! 
barrier. Even the letters and papers received or seen pre- i 


THE REDSKINS. 


11 

viously to this last term, were of a private nature, and con- 
tained nothing of a general character. The “ twenty mil- 
lions” — it was only the other day they were called the 
“twelve millions” — but, the “twenty millions,” we knew', 
liad been looking up amazingly after the temporary depres- 
sion of the moneyed crisis it had gone through ; and the 
bankers had paid our drafts with confidence, and without 
extra charges, during the whole time we had been absent. 
It is true, Uncle Ro, as an experienced traveller, went w^ell 
fortified in the way of credit — a precaution by no means 
unnecessary with Americans, after the cry that had been 
raised against us in the old world. 

And here I wish to say one thing plainly, before I write 
another line. As for falling into the narrow, self-adulatory, 
provincial feeling of the American who has never left his 
mother’s apron-string, and which causes him to swallow, 
open-mouthed, all the nonsense that is uttered to the world 
in the columns of newspapers, or in the pages of your year- 
ling travellers, who go on “ excursions” before they aro 
half instructed in the social usages and the distinctive fea- 
tures of their own country, I hope I shall be just as far 
removed from such a weakness, in any passing remark that 
may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confounding 
principles and denying facts in a w’ay to do discredit to the 
land of my birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived 
long enough in the “ world,” not meaning thereby the south- 
east corner of the north-west township of Connecticut, to 
understand that we are a vast w^ay behind older nations, in 
thovght as well as deed, in many things ; while, on the oppo- 
site hand, they are a vast way behind us in others. I see no 
patriotism in concealing a wholesome truth ,* and least of all 
shall I be influenced by the puerility of a desire to hide 
anything of this nature, because I cannot communicate it 
to my countrymen without communicating it to the rest of 
the world. If England or France had acted on this narrow 
principle, where would have been their Shakspeares, their 
Sheridans, their Beaumonts and Fletchers, and their Mo- 
lieres ! No, no ! great national truths are not to be treated 
as the gossiping surmises of village crones. He who reads 
what I write, therefore, must expect to find what I think of 
matters and things, and not exactly what he may happen to 


THE REDSKINS. 


12 

i think on the same subjects. Any one is at liberty to com 
pare opinions with me ; but I ask the privilege of possessing 
some small liberty of conscience in what is, far and near, 
proclaimed to be the only free country on the earth. By 
“ far and near,” I mean from the St. Croix to the Rio 
Grande, and from Cape Cod to the entrance of St. Juan de 
Fuca, and a pretty farm it makes, the “interval” that lies 
between these limits ! One may call it “ far and near” 
without the imputation of obscurity, or that of vanity. 

Our tour was completed, in spite of all annoyances,* and 
here we were again, within the walls of magnificent Paris! 
The postilions had been told to drive to the hotel, in the rue 
St. Dominique ; and we sat down to dinner, an hour after 
our arrival, under our own roof. My uncle’s tenant had 
left the apartment a month before, according to agreement; 
and the porter and his wife had engaged a cook, set the 
rooms in order, and prepared everything for our arrival. 

“ It must be owned, Hugh,” said my uncle, as he finished 
his soup that day, “ one may live quite comfortably in Paris, 
if he possess the savoir vivre. Nevertheless, I have a 
strong desire to get a taste of native air. One may say and 
think w'hat he pleases about the Paris pleasures, and the 
Paris cnisiney and all that sort of things; but “home is 
home, be it ever so homely.” A ‘ d’Inde aux 1 ruffes’ is capi- 
tal eating; so is a turkey with cranberry sauce. I some- 
times think I could fancy even a pumpkin pie, though there 
i is not a fragment of the rock of Plymouth in the granite of 
i my frame.” 

j “ I have always told you, si-r, that America is a capital 
i eating and drinking country, let it want civilization in 
i other matters, as much as it may.” 

“ Capital for eating and drinking, Hugh, if you can keep 
clear of the grease, in the first place, and find a real cook, 
in the second. There is as much difference betw'een the 
cookery of New England, for instance, and that of the 
Middle States, barring the Dutch, as there is between that 
of England and Germany. The cookery of the Middle 
States, and of the Southern States, too, though that savours 
a little of the West Indies — but the cookery of the Middle 
States is English, in its best sense ; meaning tbe hearty, 
Bubstaniial, savoury dishes of the English in their true do- 


THE REDSKINS. 


13 

mestic life, with their roast-beef underdone, their beefsteaks 
done to a turn, their chops full of gravy, their mutton-broth, 
legs-of-mutton, et id omne genus. We have some capital 
things of our own, too ; such as- canvass-backs, reedbirds, 
sheepshead, shad, and blackfish. The difference between 
New England and the Middle States is still quite observ- 
able, though in my younger days it was patent. I suppose 
the cause has been the more provincial origin, and the more 
provincial habits, of our neighbours. By George ! Hugh, 
one could fancy clam-soup just now, eh !” 

“ Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious 
soups in the world. If the cooks of Paris, could get hold 
of the dish, it would set them up for a whole season.” 

“ What is ‘creme de Baviere,’ and all such nick-nacks, 
boy, to a good plateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you 
say — made as a cook of Jennings’ used to make it, thirty 
years since. Did I ever mention that fellow’s soup, to you 
before, Hugh?” 

“ Often, sir. I have tasted very excellent clanT-sou'p, 
however, that he never saw. Of course you mean soup just 
flavoured by the little hard-clam — none of your vulgar pbt^ 

- age a la soft-clam ?” 

“ Soft-clams be hanged ! they are not made for gentlemen 
I to eat. Of course I mean the hard-clam, and the small 
I clam, too — 

j Here ’s your fine clams, 

I ■ As white as snow; i 

j On Rockaway 1 

I These clams do grow. | 

The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything | 
else at home that is twenty years old. Shall I send you 
some of this eternal poulet d la Marengo ? I wish it were 
honest American boiled fowl, with a delicate bit of shoat- 
pork alongside of it. I feel amazingly homeish this eve- 
ning, Hugh!” 

“ It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro ,* and I own to the 
‘soft impeachment’ myself. Here have we both been ab- 
sent from our native land five years, and half that time 
almost without hearing from it. We know that Jacob” — 
this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of the 

VoL. I.— 2 I 


THE REDSKINS- 


14 

I old domestic system of the colonies, whose name w'ould 
I have been Jaaf, or Yop, thirty years before — “ has gone to 
j our banker’s for letters and papers ; and that naturally 
I draws our thoughts to the^her side of the Atlantic. I dare 
i say we shall both feel reliS^d at breakfast to-morrow, when 
j we shall have read our respective despatches.” 

' “ Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good 

I old York fashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys, 
j never thought of wetting our lips with the half-glass of Ma- 
j deira that fell to our share, without saying, ‘ Good health, 
i Mall !' ‘ Good health, Hodge !’ ” 

“ With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting 
' to be a little obsolete even before I left home; but it is 
-aij^st an American custom, by sticking to us longer than 
f to most people.” 

Vt^kF^^R^ri !” 

Thi^vas my uncle’s maitre d’hotel, whom he had kept 
at boaro-wages the whole time of our absence, in order to 
niakfeii^ure of his ease, quiet, taste, skill, and honesty, on 
Sis re|urn. 

'^'^^^onsieur !” 

I “ I dare say” — my uncle spoke French exceedingly well 
I for a foreigner ; l)ut it is better to translate what he said as 

I we go — “ I dare say this glass of vin de Bourgogne is very 
I good ; it looks good, and it came from a wine-merchant on 
whom I can rely ; but Mons. Hugh and I are going to drink 
together, a I’Americaine, and I dare say you will let us 
have a glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the 
dinner to take it.” 

I “ Tres volontiers, Messieurs — it is my happiness to oblige 

you.” 

■ Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together ; but I cannot 
! say much in favour of its quality. 

I “ What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin !” ex- 
1 claimed my uncle, after eating a while in silence. “ They 
i talk a great deal about their poire beurree, here at Paris ; 
j but, to my fancy, it will not compare with the Newtowners 
I we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruit is rathei 
j better, I think, than that one finds across the river, at New- 

■ town itself.” 

“ They are capital apples, sir ; and your orchard at Sa- 


THE REDSKINS 


15 


tanstoe is one of the best I kno\v, or rather what is left of 
it ; for I believe a portion of ypur trees are in what is now 
a suburb of Dibbletonborough 

“ Yes, blast that place 1 I wi^ I lhsi,d never parted with 
a foot of the old neck, though I rather make money by 
the sale. But money is no compeHSt^ion for the affections.” 

“ Rather make money, my dear sir ! Pray, may I ask 
what Satanstoe was valued at, when you got it from my* 
grandfather V' 

' “ Pretty well up, Hugh ; for it was, and indeed is, a first* 
rate farm. Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will 
remember that there are quite five hundred acres of it, alto- 
gether.” ! 

“ Which you inherited in 1829?” | 

“Of course; that was the year of my father’s death."*^ 
Why, the place was thought to be worth about thirty. tJlg u- 
sand dollars at that time ; but land was rather low i^West- 
Chester in 1829.” 

“And you sold two hundred acres, including the pojJlL 
the harbour, and a good deal of the sedges, for the mocf^te) 
modicum of one hundred and ten thousand, cash. A tolera- 
ble sale, sir I” 

“ No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while 
thirty thousand were secured by-mortgage.” , 

“ Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth 
were told, covering the whole city of Dibbletonborough. 

A city ought to be good security for thirty thousand dol- 
lars?” 

“It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators 
who bought of me in 18.!35 laid out their town, built a hotel, 
a wharf, and a warehouse, and then had an auction. They 
sold four hundred lots, each twenty-five feet by a hundred 
regulation size, yoO see, at an average of two hundred and 
fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand dollars, 
down, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after 
this, the bubble burst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough 
would not bring, under the hammer, twenty dollars. The 
hotel and the warehouse stand alone in their glory, and will 
thus stand until they fall, which will not be a thousand years 
hence, I rather think.” 

“And what is the condition of the town-plot ?” 




16 


THE REDSKINS. 

“Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing ; and ;t 
would cost any man \vl^,^ould attempt it, the value of hia 
lot, to hire a surveyor T^dSnS his twenty-five by a hundred.” 

“ But your mortgag^is^good ?” 

“Ay, good in one •sen^eV but it would puzzle a Philadel- 
phia law'yer to foreclose it. Why, the equitable interests in 
that town-plot, people the place of themselves. I ordered 
my agent to commence buying up the rights, as the shortest 
process of getting rid of them ,* and he told me in the very 
last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasing 
the titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an 
, average price of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose, 
will have to be absorbed.” 

^ “Absorbed 1 That is a process I never heard of, as ap- 
fplied to land.” 

; ''»,^,^4fepThere is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in 
j America. It is merely including within your own posses- 
I si^n,^kirojacent land for which no claimant appears. What 
i qan 4 ., do I No owners are to be found ; and then my mort- 
: gagejs always a title. A possession of tw’enty years under 

i a mortgage is as good as a dqed in fee-simple, with full 
{ covenants of warranty, barring minors andjTemmes covert.’^' 
j “ You did better by Lilacsbush ?” 

I “Ah, that was a clean transaction, and has left no draw- 
I backs. Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one 
I is sure there will be a town there, some day or other. It- 
I is true, the property lies quite eight miles from the City 
I Hall ; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always be sold 
at something near it. Then the plan of New' York is made 
and recorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man 
say when the town will not reach Kingsbridge.” 

“You got a round price for the Bush, too, I have heard, 
sir?” 

I “ I got three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in 
I hard cash. I would give no credit, and have every dollar 
I of the money, at this moment, in good six per cent, stock 
I of the States of New York and Ohio.” 

I “ Which some persons in this part of the world would 
fancy to be no very secure investment.” 

“ More fools they. America is a glorious country, after 
all, Hugh ; and it is a pride and a satisfaction to belong to 


THE REDSKINS. 17 

It. Look back at it, as I can remember it, a nation spit 
upon by all the rest of Christendom ” 

“ You must at least own, my dear-sir,” I put in, some- 
what pertly, perhaps, “ the example might tempt other peo- 
ple ; for, if ever there was a nation that is assiduously spit- 
ting on itself, it is our own beloved land.” 

“ True, it has that nasty custom in excess, and it grows 
worse instead of better, as the influence of the better man- 
nered and better educated diminishes ; but this is a spot on 
the sun — a mere flaw in the diamond, that friction will take 
out. But what a country — what a glorious country, in 
truth, it is ! You have now done the civilized parts of the 
old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be per- 
suaded, yourself, of the superiority of your native land.” 

“ I remember you have always used this language, uncle 
Ro ; yet have you passed nearly one-half of your time out 
of that glorious country, since you have reached man’s 
estate.” 

“ The mere consequence of accidents and tastes. I do 
not mean that America is a country for a bachelor, to begin 
with ; the mea.ns of amusement for those who have no do- 
mestic hearths, are too limited for the bachelor. Nor do 1 
mean that society in America, in its ordinary meaning, is 
in any way as well-ordered, as tasteful, as well-mannered, 
as agreeable, or as instructive and useful, as society in 
almost any European country I know. I have never sup- 
posed that the man of leisure, apart from the affections, 
could ever enjoy himself half as much at home, as he may 
enjoy himself in this part of the world; and I am willing 
to admit that, intellectually, most gentlemen in a great Eu- 
ropean capital live as much in one day, as they would live 
in a week in such places as New York, and Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore.” 

“You do not include Boston, I perceive, sir.” 

“ Of Boston I say nothing. They take the mind hard, 
there, and we had better let such a state of things alone. But 
fis respects a man or w'oman of leisure, a man or woman 
of taste, a man or woman of refinement generally, I am 
willing enough to admit that, cceter is paribus, each can find 
far more enjoyment in Europe than in America. But the 
philosopher, the philanthropist, the political economist — in 
2 ^ 


THE REDSKINS. 


18 

a word, the patriot, may well exult in such elements of pro^ 
found national superiority as may be found in America.” 

“ I hope these elements are not so profound but they can 
be dug up at need, uncle Ro?” 

“ There will be little difficulty in doing that, my boy. 
Look at the equality of the laws, to begin with. They are 
made on the principles of natural justice, and are intended 
for the benefit of society — for the poor as well as the rich.” 

“Are they also intended for the rich as well as the poor?” 

“ Well, I will grant you a slight blemish is beginning to 
appear, in that particular. It is a failing incidental to hu- 
manity, and we must not expect perfection. There is cer- 
tainly a slight disposition to legislate for numbers, in order 
to obtain support at the polls, which has made the relation 
of debtor and creditor a little insecure, possibly ; but pru- 
dence can easily get along with that. It is erring on the 
right side, is it not, to favour the poor instead of the rich, 
if either is to be preferred ?” 

“ Justice would favour neither, but treat all alike. I havo 
always heard that the tyranny of numbers was the worst 
tyranny in the world.” 

“Perhaps it is, where there is actually tyranny, and for 
a very obvious reason. One tyrant is sooner satisfied than 
a million, and has even a greater sense of responsibility. I 
can easily conceive that the Czar himself, if disposed to be 
a tyrant, which I am far from thinking to be the case with 
Nicholas, might hesitate about doing that, under his undi- 
vided responsibility, which one of our majorities would do, 
without even being conscious of the oppression it exercised, 
or caring at all about it. But, on the whole, we do little of 
the last, and not in the least enough to counterbalance the 
immense advantages of the system.” 

“ I have heard very discreet men say that the worst symp- 
tom of our system is the gradual decay of justice among 
us. The judges have lost most of their influence, and the 
jurors are getting to be law-makers, as well as law- 
breakers.” 

“ There is a good deal of truth in that, I will acknow- | 
ledge, also; and you hear it asked constantly, in a case of ; 
any interest, not which party is in the right, but who is on 
the jury. But I contend for no perfection ; all I say is, that 


THE REDSKINS. 


19 

the country is a glorious country, and that you and I have 
every reason to be proud that old Hugh Roger, our prede- 
cessor and namesake, saw fit to transplant himself into it, a 
century and a half since.” 

“ 1 dare say now, uncle Ro, it would strike most Euro- 
peans as singular that a man should be proud of having 
been born an American — Manhattanese, as you and I both 
were.” 

“All that may be true, for there have been calculated 
attempts to bring us into discredit oflate, by harping on the 
failure of certain States to pay the interest on their debts. 
But all that is easily answered, and more so by you and me 
as New Yorkers. There is not a nation in Europe that 
would pay its interest, if those who are taxed to do so had 
the control of these taxes, and the power to say whether 
they were to be levied or not.” 

- “ I do not see how that mends the matter. These coun- 
tries tell us that such is the effect of your system there, 
while we are too honest to allow such a system to exist in 
this part of the world.” 

“ Pooh ! all gammon, that. They prevent the existence 
of our system for very different reasons, and they coerce 
the payment of the interest on their debts that they may 
borrow more. This business of repudiation, as it is called, 
however, has been miserably misrepresented ; and there is 
no answering a falsehood by an argument. No American 
State has repudiated its debt, that I know of, though several 
have been unable to meet their engagements as they have 
fallen due.” 

Unable, uncle Ro?” 

“ Yes, vnable — that is the precise word. Take Pennsyl- 
vania, for instance ; that is one of the richest communities 
in the civilized world ; its coal and iron alone would make 
any country affluent, and a portion of its agricultural popu- 
lation is one of the most affluent I know of. Nevertheless, 
Pennsylvania, owing to a concurrence of events, could not 
pay the interest on her debt for two years and a half, though 
she is doing it now, and will doubtless continue to do it. 
The sudden breaking down of that colossal moneyed institu- 
tion, the soi-disant Bank of the United States, after it ceased 
to be in reality a bank of the government, brought about 


THE REDSKINS. 


I 20 

I Buch a state of the circulation as rendered payment, by any 
I of the ordinary means known to government, impossible, 

I I know what I say, and repeat impossible. It i-s well known 
that many persons, accustomed to afiiuence, had to carry 
their plate to the mint, in order to obtain money to go to 
market. Then something irjay be attributed to the institu- j 
I lions, without disparaging a people’s honesty. Our institu- 
1 lions are popular, just as those of France are the reverse; i 

j and the people, they who were on the spot — the home ere- : 

ditor, with his account unpaid, and with his friends and ; 
relatives in the legislature, and present to aid him, contend- 
ed for his own money, before any should be sent abroad.” j 
“ Was that exactly right, sir?” j 

“ Certainly not ; it was exactly wrong, but very particu- i 
larly natural. Do you suppose the King of France would 
not take the money for his civil list, if circumstances should 
compel the country to suspend on the debt for a year or 
I two, or the ministers tkeir salaries? My word for it, each 
I and all of them would prefer themselves as creditors, and 
I act accordingly. Every one of these countries has sus- 
pended in 'some form or other, and in many instances ba- 
lanced the account with the sponge. Their clamour against 
us is altogether calculated with a view to political effect.” 

“ Still, I wish Pennsylvania, for instance, had continued 
to pay, at every hazard.” 

“ It is well enough to wish, Hugh ; but it is wishing for 
an impossibility. Then you and I, as New Yorkers, have 
nothing to do with the debt of Pennsylvania, no more than 
London would have to do with the debt of Dublin or Que- 
bec. We have always paid ovr interest, and, what is more, 
paid it more honestly, if honesty be the point, than even 
England has paid hers. When o?/r banks suspended, the 
State paid its interest in as much paper as would buy the ! 
specie in open market ; whereas England made paper "legal 
tender, and paid the interest on her debt in it for something 
like five-and-twenty years, and, that, too, when her pape^ 
was at a large discount. I knew of one American who 
held near a million of dollars in the English debt, on which 
he had to take unconvertible paper for the interest for a lontr 
series of years. No, no ! this is all gammon, Hugh, and 
is -not to be regarded as making us a whit worse than our j 


THE REDSKINS. Si 

neighbours. The equality of our laws is the fact in whicli 
I glory !” 

“If the rich stood as fair a chance as the poor, untie 
Ro.” 

“ There is a screw loose there, I must confess ; but it 
amounts to no great matter,” 

“ Then the late bankrupt law?” 

“Ay, that was an irrfernal procedure — that much I will 
acknowledge, too. It was special legislation enacted to pay 
particular debts, and the law was repealed as soon as it had 
done its duly. That is a much darker spot in our history 
than what is called repudiation, though perfectly honest men 
voted for it.” 

“ Did you ever hear, of a farce they got up about it at 
New York, just after we sailed ?” 

“Never; what was it, Hugh? though American plays 
are pretty much all farces.” 

“ This was a little better than common, and, on the. 
whole, really, clever. It is the old story of Faust, in which 
a young spendthrift sells himself, soul and body, to the 
devil. On a'certain evening, as he is making merry with 
a set of wild companions, his creditor arrives, and, insisting 
on seeing the master, is admitted by ‘the servant. He 
' comes on, club-footed and behorned, as usual, and betai’ed, 
too, I believe ; but Tom is not to be scared by trifles. He 
insists on his guest’s being seated, on his taking a glass of 
wine, and then on Dick’s finishing his song. But, though 
the rest of the company had signed no bonds to Satan, they 
had certain outstanding book-debts, which made them exces- 
sively uncomfortable; and the odour of brimstone being 
rather strong, Tom arose, approached his guest, and desired 
to know the nature of the particular business he had men- 
tioned to his servant. ‘This bond, sir,’ said Satan, signifi- 
cantly. ‘ This bond? what of it, pray ? It seems all right.’ 
‘Is not that your signature?’ ‘I admit it.’ ‘Signed in 
your blood?’ ‘A conceit of your own ; I told you at the 
time that ink was just as good in law.’ ‘ It is past due, 
seven minutes and fourteen seconds.’ ‘So it is, I declare! 
but what' of that?’ ‘I demand payment.’ ‘Nonsense! 
no one thinks of paying now-a-days. Why, even Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland don’t pay.’ ‘I insist on payment.’ 


THE REDSKINS. 


.22 


I 


‘Oh! you do, do you?’ Tom draws a paper ^from his 
pocket, and adds, magnificently, ‘ There, then, if you ’re so 
urgent — there is a discharge under the new bankrupt law, 
signed Smith Thompson.’ This knocked the deviK injo a 
cocked*hat at once.” 

My uncle laughed heartily at my story ; but, instead of 
taking the matter as I had fancied he might, it made him 
think better of the country than ever. 

“ Well, Hugh, we have wit among us, it must be con- 
fessed,” he cried, with the tears running down his cheeks, 
“ if we have some rascally laws, and some rascals to admi- 
nister them. But here comes Jacob with his letters and 
papers — I declare, the fellow has a large basket-full.” 

Jacob, a highly respectable black, and the great-grandson 
of an old negro named Jaaf, or Yop, who was then living 
on my own estate at Ravensnest, had just then entered, with 
the porter and himself lugging in the basket in question. 
There were several hundred newspapers, and quite a hun- 
dred letters. The sight brought home and America clearly 
and vividly before us; and, having nearly finished the des- 
sert, we rose^ilook at the packages. It was no small task 
to sort our may, Jhere being so many letters and packages 
to be^iyided. 

“ Here are some newspapers I never saw before,” said 
my uncle, as he tumbled over the pile; “‘The Guardian 
of the Soil’ — that must have something to do with Oregon.” 

“ I dare say it has, Here are at least a dozen letters 
from my sister.” '' : 

“Ay, yovr sister is single, and can still think of her bro- 
ther; but mine are married^, and one letter a-year would be 
a great deal. This is my denrold mother’s hand, however ; 
that is something. Ursula Malbone would never forget her 
child. Well, bon soii\ Hugh. Each of us has enough to 
do for one evening.” 


“Aw revoir, sir. We shall meet at ten to-morrow, when 
we can compare our news, and exchange gossip.” 


THE REDSKINS. 



) “ Why droops my lord, like over-ripen’d corn, | 

! Hanging the head at Ceres’ plenteous loadi” J 

‘ King Henry VL ! 

I DID not get into my bed that night until two, nor was I j 
out of it until half-past nine. It was near eleven when 
Jacob came to tell me his master was in the salle d manger^ 
j and ready to eat his breakfast. I hastened up stairs, sleep- 
( ing in the entresol^ and was at table with m^ uncle in three 
I minutes. I observed, on entering, that he was very grave, 
i and 1 now perceived that a couple of letters, and severral 
American newspapers, lay near him. Hisj«j Good morrow, 1 
Hugh,” was kind and a&ctionate as usu|l,^ut I fancied it 1 
sad. \ 1 

“No bad news from home, I hope, sir!” I exclaimed j 
under the first impulse of feeling. “ Mariha’I^last letter is • 
of quite recent date, and she writes very cl^effully. I knpic | 
that my grandmother was perfectly well, hiM: weeks since.” | 
“ I know the same, Hugh, for I have a letter from her- j 

I self, written with her own blessed hand. My mother is in ! 

^ excellent health for a woman of fourscore ; but she natu- | 

rally wishes to see us, and you in.^rticular. Grandchil- 
dren are ever the pets with ^rand^^others.” 

“ I am glad to hear all this, sii ,* for I was really afraid, j 
on entering the room, thr^yoiyhad received some unplea- i 
I sant news.” j 

“And is all your news pleasant, after so long a silence?” | 
“ Nothing that is disagreeable, I do assure you. Patt 
I writes in charming spirits, and I dare say is in blooming 

i beauty by this time, though she tells me that she is gene- 

rally thought rather plain. That is impossible; for you 
know when we left her, at fifteen, she had every promise of 
great beauty.” 

“As you say, it is ^impossible that Martha Littlepage 
should be anythin^”' btit handsome; for fifteen is an age | 
when, in Americaf^e may safely predict the woman’s ap- i 

’ - > 


THE REDSKINS. 


24 

pearance. Your sister is preparing for you an agrceabla 
surprise. I have heard old persons say that she was very 
like my mother at the same time of life; and Dus Malbone 
was a sort of toast once in the forest.” | 

“I dare say it is all as you think; more especially as j 
'here are several allusions to a certain Harry Beekman in 
ner letters, at which I should feel flattered, were I in Mr. 

I Harry’s place. Do you happen to know anything of such 
a family as the Beekmans, sir?” 

My uncle looked up in a little surprise at this question. ' 
A thorough New Yorker by birth, associations, alliances 
and feelings, he held all the old names of the colony and 
I State in profound respect; and I had often heard him sneer 
; at the manner in which.. the new-comers of my day, who 
1 had appeared among us to blossom like the rose, scattered 

I their odours through the land. It was but a natural thing 

I that a community which had grown in population, in half a 
! century, from half a million to two millions and a half, and 
j that as much by immigration from adjoining communities 
i as by natural increase, should undergo some change of feel- 
j ing in this respect; but, on the other hand, it was just as 
natural that the true New Yorker should not. 

“ Of course you know, Hugh, that it is an ancient and 
i respected name among us,” answered my uncle, after he [. 
j had given me the look of surprise^fl have already mentioned. | 

I “ There is a branch of the Beekmans, or Bakemans, as we j 
I used to call them, settled near Satanstoe; and I dare say | 

I that your sister, in her frequent visits to my mother, has 
I metwdth them. The association would be but natural ; afld 
the other feeling to which you allude is, I dare say, but 
natural to the association, though I cannot say I ever expe- f 
rienced it.” | 

“You will still adhere to your asseverations of never | 
having been the victim of Cupid, I find, sir.” I 

“ Hugh, Hugh ! let us trifle no more. There is news I 
A’om home that has almost broken my heart.” | 

I sat gazing at my uncle in wonder and alarm, while he i 
; placed both his hands on his face, as if to exclude this { 
j wicked world, and all it contained, from his sight. I did 
i not speak, for I saw that the old gentleman was really 
affecb^,'.but waited his pleasure to communicate more. My j 


TT 


THU REDSKINS. 


25 

impatience was soon relieved, however, as the hands were 
removed, and I once more caught a view of my uncle’s 
handsome, but clouded countenance. 

“May I ask the nature of this news?” I then ventured to 
inquire. 

“ You may, and I shall now tell you. It is proper, in- 
deed, that you should hear all, and understand it all; for 
you have a direct interest in the matter, and a large portion 
of your properly is dependent on the result. Had not the 
manor troubles, as they were called, been spoken of before 
we left home?” 

“ Certainly, though not to any great extent. We saw 
something of it in the papers, 1 remember, just before we 
went to Russia ; and I recollect you mentioned it as a dis- 
creditable affair to the State, though likely to lead to no very 
important result.” 

“ So I then thought ; but that hope has been delusive. 
There were some reasons why a population like ours should 
chafe under the situation of the estate of the late Patroon 
that 1 thought natural, though unjustifiable; for it is unhajf* 
pily too muclj^a law of humanity to do that which is wrca. 
more especially in matters connected with the pocket.” 

“I do no^xacily understand your allusion, sir.” 

“ It is easily explained. The Van Rensselaer property 
is, in the first place, of ^reat extent — the manor, as it is 
still called and once was, .^jreading east and west eight-and- 
forty miles, and north and south twenty-four. With a few 
immaterial exceptions, including the sites of three or four 
towns, three of whi(;h are cities containing respectively six, 
twenty and forty thousand souls, this large surface was the 
property of a single individual. Since his death, it has 
become the property of two, subject to the conditions of the 
leases, of which by far the greater portion are what are 
called durable.” 

“ I have heard all this, of course, sir, and know some- 
thing of it myself. But what is a durable lease? for I be- 
lieve we have none of that nature at Ravensnest.” 

“No; your leases are all for three lives, and most of 
them renewals at that. There are two sorts of ‘ durable 
leases,’ as we term them, in use among the landlords of 
New York. Both give the tenant a permanent ii^erest 
VoL. 1.-3 


THE REDSKINS. 


2G 


being leases for ever, reserving an annual rent, with the 
right to distrain, and covenants of re-entry. But one class 
of these leases gives the tenant a right at any time to de- ^ 
mand a deed in fee-simple, on the payment of a stipulated ' 
sum ; while the other gives him no such privilege. Thus 
one class of these leases is called ‘ a durable lease with a 
clause of redemption while the other is a simple ‘ durable 
lease.’ ” 

“And are there any new difficulties in relation to the 
manor rents ?” 

“ Far worse than that ; the contagion has spread, until 
the greatest ills that have been predicted from democratic 
institutions, by their worst enemies, seriously menace the 
country. I am afraid, Hugh, I shall not be able to call 
New York, any longer, an exception to the evil example of 
a neighbourhood, or the country itself a glorious country.” 

“ This is so serious, sir, that, were it not that your looks 
denote the contrary, I might be disposed to doubt your 
words.” 

“ I fear my words are only too true. Dunning has writ- 
ten'. me a long account of his own, made out with the pre- 
cision of a lawyer ; and, in addition, he has sent me divers 
papers, some of which openly contend for what is substan- 
tially a new division of property, and what in effect would 
be agrarian laws.” 

“ Surely, my dear uncle, you cannot seriously apprehend 
anything of that nature from our order-loving, law-loving, 
property-loving Americans !” 

“ Your last description may contain the secret of the 
whole movement. The love of property may be so strong 
as to induce them to do a great many things they ought not 
to do. I certainly do not apprehend that any direct attempt 
is about to be made, in New York, to divide its property; 
nor do 1 fear any open, declared agrarian statute; for what 
I apprehend is to come through indirect and gradual inno- 
vations on the right, that will be made to assume the delu- 
sive aspect of justice and equal rights, and thus undermine 
the principles of the people, before they are aware of the 
danger themselves. In order that you may not only under, 
stand me, but may understand facts that are of the last 
importance to your own pocket, I will first tell you what 


I 


1 


I 


! 


THE REDSKINS. 


27 

has been done, and then tell you what I fear is to follow. 
The first difficulty — or, rather, the first difficulty of recent 
occurrence — arose at the death of the late Patroon. I say 
of recent occurrence, since Dunning writes me that, during 
the administration of John Jay, an attempt to resist the 
payment of rent was made on the manor of the Living- 
stons ; but he put it down insfanter.^^ 

“ Yes, I should rather think that roguery would not be 
apt to prosper, while the execution of the laws was entrusted 
to such a man. The age of such politicians, however, 
seems to have ended among us.” 

I “ It did nc^t prosper. Governor Jay met the pretension 
j as we all know such a man would meet it; and the matter 
I died away, and has been nearly forgotten. It is worthy of 
I remark, that he put the evil down. But this is not the 
I age of John Jays. To proceed to my narrative ; When the 
j late Patroon died, there was due to him a sum of something 
! like two hundred thousand dollars of back-rents, and of 
j which he had made a special disposition in his will, vesting 
the money in trustees for a certain purpose. It was the 
attempt to collect this money which first gave rise to dissa- 
tisfaction. Those who had been debtors so long, were 
reluctant to pay. In casting round for the means to escape 
from the payment of their just debts, these men, feeling the 
power that numbers ever give over right in America, com- 
bined to resist with others who again had in view a project 
to get rid of the rents altogether. Out of this combination 
grew what have been called the ‘ manor troubles.’ Men 
appeared in a sort of mock-Indian dress, calico shirts 
thrown over their other clothes, and with a species of calico 
masks on their faces, who resisted the bailiffs’ processes, 
and completely prevented the collection of rents. These 
men were armed, mostly with rifles; and it was finally 
found necessary to call out a strong body of the militia, in 
order to protect the civil officers in the execution of their 
duties.” 

“All this occurred before* we went to the East. I had 
j supposed those anti-renters, as they were called, had been_ 
j effectually put down.” 

I “ In appearance, they were. But the very governor who 
called the militia into the field, referred the subject of the 


THE REDSKINS. 


28 

^ grief of the tenants to the legislature, as if they were 
actually aggrieved citizens, when in truth it was the land- 
lords, or the Rensselaers, for at that time the ‘ troubles’ were 
confined to their property, who were the aggrieved parties. 
This false step has done an incalculable amount of mischief, 
if it do not prove the entering wedge to rive asunder the 
institutions of the State.” 

“ It is extraordinary, when such things occur, that any 
man can mistake his duty. Why were the tenants thus 
spoken of, while nothing was said beyond what the law 
compelled in favour of the landlords ?” 

“ I can see no reason but the fact that the Rensselaers 
were only two, and that the disaffected tenants were proba- 
bly two thousand. With all the cry of aristocracy, and 
feudality, and nobility, neither of the Rensselaers, by the 
letter of the law, has one particle more of political power, 
or political right, than his own coachman or footman, if the 
last be a white man ; while, in practice, he is in many things 
getting to be less protected.” 

“Then 'you think, sir, that this matter has gained force 
from the circumstance that so many votes depend on it?” 

“ Out of all question. Its success depends on the viola- 
tions of principles that we have been so long taught to hold 
sacred, that nothing short of the over-ruling and corrupting 
influence of politics would dare to assail them. If there 
were a landlord to each farm, as well as a tenant, universal 
indifference would prevail as to the griefs of the tenants; 
and if two to one tenant, universal indignation at their 
impudence.” 

“ Of what particular griefs do the tenants complain?” 

“You mean the Rensselaer tenants, I suppose ? Why, 
they com'plain of such covenants as they can, though their 
deepest affliction is to be found in the fact that they do not 
own other men’s lands. The Patroon had quarter sales on 
many of his farms — those that were let in the last century.” 

“ Well, what of that? A bargain to allow of quarter 
sales is just as fair as any other bargain.” 

“ It is fairer, in fact, than most bargains, when you come 
to analyze it, since there is a very good reason why it should 
accompany a perpetual lease. Is it to be supposed that a 
landlord has no interest in the character and habits of his 


THE REDSKINS. 


29 


I 


1 


tenants? He has the closest interest in it possible, and no 
prudent man should let his lands without holding some sort 
ot control over the assignment of leases. Now, there are ! 

but two modes of doing this ; either by holding over the | 

tenant a power through his interests, or a direct veto de- 
pendent solely on the landlord’s will.” 

“ The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny 
and feudality in America !” ' 

“ Pretty cries on such subjects are very easily raised in ! 

America. More people join in them than understand what ! 

they mean. Nevertheless, it is quite as just, when two me-n ' 

bargain, that he who owns every right in the land before ! 

the bargain is made, should retain this right over his pro- j 

perty, which he .consents to part with only with limitations, j 

as that he should grant it to another. These men, in their 
clamour, forget that, until their leases were obtained, they i 

had no right in their lands at all, and that what they have | 

got is through those very leases of which they complain ; 
take away the leases, and they would have no rights re- i 

maining. Now, on what principle can honest men pretend ! 

that they have rights beyond the leases? On the suppo«»':- I 

tion, even, that the bargains are hard, what have governors j 

and legislators to do with thrusting themselves in between j 

parties so situated, as special un.pires? 1 should object to ! 

such umpires, moreover, on the general and controlling j 

principle that must govern all righteous arbitration — your | 

governors and legislators are not imparAal ; they are poli- ! 

tical or party men, one may say, without exception; and j 

such umpires, when votes are in the question, are to be i 

sorely distrusted. I would as soon trust my interests to the 
decision of feed counsel, as trust them to such jud.q^es.” 

“ I wonder the really impartial and upright portion of the 
community do not rise in their might, and put this thing 
down — rip it up, root and branch, and cast it away, at 
once.” 

“ That is the weak point of our system, which has a hun- i 
dred strong points, while it has this besetting vice. Our ! 

laws are not only made, but they are administered, on the j 

supposition that there are both honesty arid intelligence j 

enough in the body of the community to see them well I 

made, and well administered. But the sad reality shows ! 

Q * ! 


I 



THE REDSKINS. 


i that good men are commonly passive, until abuses become 
I intolerable ; it being the designing rogue and manager who 
' is usually the most active. Vigilant philanthropists c?o exist, 
: I will allow ; but it is in such small numbers as to effect 
I little on the whole, and nothing at all when opposed by the 
' zeal of a mercenary opposition. No, no — little is ever to 
! be expected, in a political sense, from the activity of virtue; 

! while a great deal may be looked for from the activity of 
! vice.” 

I “ You do not take a very favourable view of humanity, 

' 

I SI r • 

I “ I speak of the world as I have found it in both hemi- 
j spheres, or, as your neighbour the magistrate ’Squire New- 
come has it, the ‘ four hemispheres.’ Our representation is, 

I at the best, but an average of the qualities of the whole 
! community, somewhat lessened by the fact that men of real 
I merit have taken a disgust at a state of things that is not 

I very tempting to their habits or tastes. As for a quarter 

I sale, I caa see no more hardship in it than there is in pay- 

|~ ing tlie rent itself; and, by giving the landlord this check 
I on the transfer cf his lands, he compels a compromise that 

j maintains what is just. The tenant is not obliged to sell, 

! and he makes his conditions accordingly, when he has a 

j good tenant to offer in his stead. When he offers a bad 
; tenant, he ought to pay for it.” 

I “ iMany persons with us would think it very aristocratic,” 
j I cried, laughingly, “ that a landlord should have it in his 
i povver !!►) say, I will not accept this or that substitute for 
I yourself.” 

j “ It is just as aristocratic, and no more so, than it would 
be to put it in the power of the tenant to say to the landlord, 
you shall accept this or that tenant at my hands. The 
covenant of the quarter sale gives each party a control in 
the matter; and the result has ever been a compromise that 
IS perfectly fair, as it is hardly possible that the circum- 
I stance/should have been overlooked in making the bargain ; 
and he who know’s anything of such matters, knows that 
every exaction of this sort is always considered in the 
rent. As PDr feudality, so long as the power to alienate 
exists at all in the tenant, he does not hold by a feudal 
tenure. He has bought himself from all such tenures by 


) 


THE REDSKINS. 


his covenant of quarter sale ; and it onl} remains to say ^ 
' whether, having agreed to such a bargain in order to obtain 
this advantage, he should pay the stipulated price or not.” 

“ I understand you, sir. It is easy to come at the equity 
of this matter, if one will only go back to the origin#! facts 
w'hich colour it. The tenant had no rights at all until he 
j got his lease, and can have no rights which that lease doea i 

i not confer.” i 

' “ Then the cry is raised of feudal privileges, because | 

some of the Rensselaer tenants are obliged to find so many 
days’ work with their teams, or substitutes, to the landlord, ! 
and even because they have to pay annually a pair of fat 
I fowls! We have seen enough of America, Hugh, to know 
that most husbandmen would be delighted to have the privi- ! 
lege of paying their debts in chickens and work, instead of 
! in money, which renders the cry only so much the more 
; wicked. But what is there more feudal in a tenant’s thus 
paying his landlord, than in a butcher’s contracting to fur- 
nish so much meat for a series of years, or a mail con- 
I tractor’s agreeing to carry the mail in a four-horse coach 
for a term of years, eh ? No one objects to the rent in 
wheat, and why should they object to the rent in chickens ^ I 
Is it because our republican farmers have got to be so aris- 
tocratic themselves, that they do not like to be thought 
poulterers? This is being aristocratic on the other side. 
These dignitaries should remember that if it be plebeian to 
p* furnish fowls, it is plebeian to receive them; and if the 
tenant has to find an individual who has to submit to the 
degradation of tendering a pair of fat fowls, the landlord 
has to find an individual who has to submit to the degrada- 
tion of taking them, and of putting thern away in the larder. 

It seems to me that one is an offset to the other.” 

“ But, if I remember rightly, uncle Ro, these little mat- 
ters were always commuted for in money.” 

“ They always must lie at the option of the tenant, un- 
less the covenants went to forfeiture, which I never heard 
that they did ; for the failure to pay in kind at the time 
stipulated, would only involve a payment in money after- j 
wards. The most surprising part of this whole transaction : 
is, thak men among us hold the doctrine that these leasehold 
estates are opposed to our institutions, when, being guaran- 


THE REDSKIN S. 


32 

tied hy the institutions, they in truth form a part of them. 
Were it not for these very institutions, to which thejy are ! 

said to be opposed, and of which they virtually form a part, | 
we should soon have a pretty kettle offish between landlord i 
and tenant.” I 

“ How do you make it out that they form a part of the | 
institutions, sir V’ i 

“Simply because the institutions have a solemn profes- | 
sion of protecting property. There is such a parade of this, j 
that all our constitutions declare that property shall never ! 
be taken without due form of law ; and to read one of them, ! 

you would think the property of the citizen is held quite as | 

sacred as his person. Now, some of these very tenures i 
existed when the State institutions were framed ; and, not 
satisfied with this, we of New York, in common with our 
sister States, solemnly prohibited ourselves, in the constitu- 
'tion of the United States, from ever meddling with them! 
Nevertheless, men are found hardy enough to assert that a 
thing which in fact belongs to the institutions, is opposed to 
them.” 

“ Perhaps they mean, sir, to their spirit, or to their tend' 
ency.” 

“Ah ! there may bo some sense in that, though much 
less than the declaimers fancy. The spirit of institutions 
is their legitimate object ; and it would be hard to prove 
that a leasehold tenure, with any conditions of mere pecu- 
niary indebtedness whatever, is opposed to any institutions 
that recognise the full rights of property. The obligation 
to pay rent no more creates political dependency, than to 
give credit -from an ordinary shop ; not so much, indeed, 
more especially under such leases as those of the Rensse- 
laers ; for the debtor on a book-debt can be sued at any 
mpment, whereas the tenant knows precisely when he has 
io pay. There is the great absurdity of those who decry 
the system as feudal and aristocratic ; for they do not see 
that those very leases are more favourable to the tenant than 
any other.” i 

“ I shall have to ask you to explain this to me, sir, being | 
too ignorant to comprehend it.” 1 

“ Why, these leases are perpetual, and the tenant cannot 
be dispossessed. The longer a lease is, other things being i 



THE REDSKINS. 


33 

I equal, the better it is for the tenant, all the world over. Let 
us suppose two farms, the one leased for five years, and the 
j other for ever : Which tenant is most independent of the 
[ political influence of his landlord, to say nothing of the im* 
j possibility of controlling votes in this way in America, from 
j a variety of causes ? Certainly he who has a lease for ever, 
j He is just as independent of his landlord, as his landlord 
I can be of him, with the exception that he has rent to pay. 

I In the latter case, he is precisely like any other debtor — 
like the poor man who contracts debts with the same store- 
keeper for a series of years. As for the possession of the 
farm, which we arato suppose is a desirable thing for the 
I tenant, he of the long lease is clearly most independent, 

I since the other may be ejected at the end of each five years, 
j Nor is there the least difference as to acquiring the property 
j in fee, since the landlord may sell equally in either case, if 
! so disposed ; and if not disposed, no honest man, under 
I ANY system, ought TO DO ANYTHING TO COMPEL HIM SO 
I TO DO, either directly or indirectly ,* and no truly honest 

MAN WOULD.” 

I put some of the words of my uncle Ro in small capi- 
tals, as the spirit of the times, not of the institutions, ren- 
ders such hints necessary. But, to continue our dialogue : 

“ I understand you now, sir, though the distinction you 
make between the spirit of the institutions and their tenden- 
I ci€s is what T do not exactly comprehend.” 

j “ It is very easily explained. The spirit of the institu- 
I tions is their intention ; their tendencies is the natural direc- 
! lion they take under the impulses of human motives, which 
j are always corrupt and corrupting. The ‘ spirit’ refers to 
I what things ought to be ; the ‘ tendencies,’ to what they arc, 
or oTehecoming. The ‘spirit’ of all political institutions is 
! to place a check on the natural propensities of men, to re- 
I strain them, and keep them within due bounds; while the 
! tendencies follow those propensities, and are quite often in 
j direct opposition to the spirit. That this outcry against 
I leasehold tenures in America is following the tendencies of 
j our institutions, I am afraid is only too true; but that it is 
I in any manner in compliance with their spirit, I utterly 
I deny.” 

I “You will allow that institutions have their spirit, which 


i 


THE REDSKINS. 


31 

ought always £o be respected, in order to preserve bar* I 
mony V’ 

“ Out of all question. The first great requisite of a poli- 
tical system is the means of protecting itseif ; the second, to 
check its tendencies at the point required by justice, wisdom I 

and good faith. In a despotism, for instance, the spirit of 
the system is to maintain that one man, who is elevated 
above the necessities and temptations of a nation — who is 
solemnly set apart for the sole purpose of government, for- 
tified by dignity, and rendered impartial by position — will 
rule in the manner most conducive to the true interests of 
his subjects. It is just as much the theory of Russia and 
Prussia that their monarchs reign not for their own good, 
but for the good of those over whom they are placed, as it 
is the theory in regard to the President of the United States. 

We all know that the tendencies of a despotism are to abuses 
of a particular character ; and it is just as certain that the 
tendencies of a republic, or rather of a democratic republic 
— for republic of itself means but little, many republics hav- 
ing had kings — but it is just as certain that the tendencies 
of a democracy are to abuses of another character. What- 
ever man touches, he infallibly abuses ; and this more in 
connection with the exercise of political power, perhaps, than 
in the management of any one interest of life, though he 
abuses all, even to religion. Less depends on the nominal 
character of institutions, perhaps, than on their ability to 
ar.«st their own tendencies at the point required by every- 1 

thing that is just and right. Hitherto, surprisingly few ! 

grave abuses have followed from our institutions ; but this | 

matter looks frightfully serious; for I have not told you i 

half, Hugh.” I 

“ Indeed, sir ! I beg you will believe me quite equal to ! 
hearing the worst.” | 

“ It is true, anti-rentism did commence on the estate of | 

the Rensselaers, and with complaints of feudal tenures, and ! 

of days’ works, and fat fowls, backed by the extravagantly | 

aristocratic pretension that a ‘ manor’ tenant was so much j 

a privileged being, that it w^as beneath his dignity, as a free ! 

man, to do that which is daily done by mail-contractors, | 

stage-coach owners, victuallers, and even by themselves in | 

their passing bargains to deliver potatoes, onions, turkeys I 


TMSREDSKIT«S. 35 

and pork, although they had solemnly covenanted with their 
landlords to pay the fat fowls, and to give the days’ works. 
The feudal system has been found to extend much further, 
and ‘ troubles,’ as they are called, have broken out in other 
parts of the State. Resistance to process, and a cessation 
of the payment of rents, has occurred on the Livingston 
property, in Hardenberg— in short, in eight or ten counties 
of the State. Even among the hondjide purchasers, on the 
Holland Purchase, this resistance has been organized, and 
a species of troops raised, who appear disguised and armed 
wherever a levy is to be made. Several men have already 
been murdered, and there is the strong probability of a civil 
war.” 

“ In the name of what is sacred and right, what has the 
government of the State been doing all this time?” 

“ In my poor judgment, a great deal that it ought not to 
have done, and very little that it ought. You know the 
state of politics at home, Hugh ; how important New York 
is in all national questions, and how nearly tied is her vote 
— less than ten thousand majority in a canvass of near half 
a million of votes. When this is the case, the least-princi- 
pled part of the voters attain an undue importance — a truth 
that has been abundantly illustrated in this question. The 
natural course would have been to raise an armed consta- 
bulary force, and to have kept it in motion, as the anti-rent- 
ers have kept their ‘ Injins’ in motion, which would have 
soon tired out the rebels, for rebels they are, who would thus 
have had to support one army in part, and the other altoge- 
ther. Such a movement on the part of the State, well and 
energetically managed, would have drawn half the ‘ Injins’ 
at once from the ranks of disaffection to those of authority ; 
for all that most of these men want is to live easy, and ta 
have a parade of military movements. Instead of that, the 
legislature substantially did nothing, until blood was spilt, 
and the grievance had got to be not only profoundly dis- 
graceful for such a State and such a country, but utterly 
intolerable to the well-affected of the revolted counties, as 
v/ell as to those who were kept out of the enjoyment of their 
property. Then, indeed, it passed the law which ought to 
have been passed the first year of the ‘ Injin’ system — a law 
which renders it felony to appear armed and disguised ; but 


■“1 


j 36 THE REDSKINS. | 

! Dunning writes me this law is openly disregarded in Dela- 
j ware and Schoharie, in particular, and that bodies ot ‘ In- i 
jins,’ in full costume and armed, of a thousand men, have 
appeared to prevent levies or sales. Where it will end, 
Heaven knows !” 

“ Do you apprehend any serious civil war ?” 

“ It is impossible to say where false principles may lead, 
when they are permitted to make head and to become widely 
disseminated, in a country like ours. Still, the disturbances, 
as such, are utterly contemptible, and couldand would be put 
down by an energetic executive in ten days lifter he had time 
to collect a force to do it with. In some particulars, the pre- I 
sent incumbent has behaved perfectly well ; while in others, | 
in my judgment, he has inflicted injuries on the right that ! 
it will require years to repair, if, indeed, they are ever re- | 
paired.” ! 

“You surprise me, sir; and this the more especially, as j 
I I know you are .generally of the same way of thinking, on 

I political subjects, with the party that is now in power.” 

j “ Did you ever know me to support what I conceived to 
I be wrong, Hugh, on account of my political affinities?” i 

I asked my uncle, a little reproachfully as to manner. “But, j 

I let me tell you the harm that I conceive has been done by 

all the governors who have had anything to do with the 
subject ; and that includes one of a party to which I am 
opposed, and two that are not. In the first place, they have 
I all t.'*eated the matter as if the tenants had really some cause 

j of complaint; when in truth all their griefs arise from the 

I fact that other men will not let them have their property 

just as they may want it, and in some respects on their own 
; terms.” 

j “ That is certainly a grief not to be maintained by reason 
j in a civilized country, and in a Christian community.” 
j “ Umph ! Christianity, like liberty, suffers fearfully in 
human hands ; one is sometimes at a loss to recognise either, 
j I have seen ministers of the gospel just as dogged, just as 
j regardless of general morality, and just as indifferent to the 
j right, in upholding their parties, as I ever saw laymen ; 
j and I have seen laymen manifesting tempers, in this respect, 

I that properly belong to devils. But our governors have 
I certainly treated this matter as if the tenants actually had 



THE REDSKINS. 


37 

griefs; when in truth their sole oppression is in being 
obliged to pay rents that are merely nominal, and in not 
being able to buy other men’s property contrary to their 
wishes, and very much at their own prices. One governor 
has even been so generous as to volunteer a mode of set- 
tling disputes with which, by the way, he has no concern, 
there being courts to discharge that office, that is singularly 
presuming on his part, to say the least, and which looks a 
confounded sight more like aristocracy, or monarchy, than i 
anything connected with leasehold tenure.” i 

' “ Why, what can the man have done?” I 

i “ He has kindly taken on himself the office of doing that 
for which I fancy he can find no authority in the institutions, 
or in their spirit — no less than advising citizens how they 
may conveniently manage their own affairs so as to get 
over difficulties that he himself substantially admits, while 
giving this very advice, are difficulties that the law sanc- 
tions T” 

“ This is a very extraordinary interference in a public 
, functionary ; because one of the parties to a contract that is i 

; solemnly guarantied by the law, chooses to complain of its 

' natnre, rather than of its conditions^ to pretend to throw the i 

j weiirht of his even assumed authority into the scales on I 

1 either side of the question !” 

I “And that in a popular government, Hugh, in which it 
I tells so strongly against a man to render him unpopular, 

1 that not one man in a million has the moral courage to resist 

i public opinion, even when he is right. You have hit the 

; nail on the head, boy ; it is in the last degree presuming, 

I and what would be denounced as tyrannical in any monarch 

i in Europe. But he has lived in vain who has not learned 

; that they who make the loudest professions of a love of 

I liberty, have little knovrledge of the quality, beyond submis- 

! sion to the demands of numbers. Our executive has carried 

I his fatherly care even beyond this ; he has actually sug- 

! gested the terms of a bargain by which he thinks the diffi- 

' culty can be settled, which, in addition to the gross assump- 

I .4on"of having a voice in a matter that in no manner belongs 

\o him, has the palpable demerit of recommending a pecu- 
I niary compromise that is flagrantly wrong as a mere pecu- 
! niary compromise.” 

VoL. I.— 4 


S8 


THE REDSKINS, 


I “ You astonish me, sir ! What is the precise nature of 
his recommendation ?” 

“ That the Rensselaers should receive such a sum from 
each tenant as would produce an interest equal to tl^e value 
of the present rent. Now, in the first place, here is a citi- 
zen who has got as much property as he wants, and who 
wishes to live for other purposes than to accumulate. This 
j property is not only invested to his entire satisfaction, as 

I regards convenience, security and returns, but also in a way 

I that is connected with some of the best sentiments of his 

i nature. It is property that has descended to him through 

I ancestors for two centuries ; property that is historically 

i connected with his name — on which he was born, on which 

I he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property 
I in a word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of 

I humanity. Because some interloper, perhaps, who has pur- 

j chased an interest in one of his farms six months before, 

i feels an aristocratic desire not to have a landlord, and | 

; wishes to own a farm in fee, that in fact he has no other | 

right to fhan he gets through his lease, the governor of the i 

great State of New York throws the weight of his official 
position against the old hereditary owner of the soil, by 
solemnly suggesting, in an official document that is intended 
to produce an effect on public opinion, that he should sell 
that which he does not wish to sell, but wishes to keep, and 
that at a price which I conceive is much below its true pe- 
cuniary value. We have liberty with a vengeance, if these 
are some of its antics !” 

“ What makes the matter worse, is the fact that each of 
the Rensselaers has a house on his estate, so placed as to be 
convenient to look after his interests ; which interests he is 
to be at the trouble of changing, leaving him his house on 
his hands, because, forsooth, one of- the parties to a plain 
and equitable bargain wishes to make better conditions than 
he covenanted for. I wonder what his Excellency proposes I 
that the landlords shall do with their money when they get 
it ? Buy new estates, and build new houses, of which t^ be 
dispossessed when a new set of tenants may choose to cry 
out against aristocracy, and demonstrate their own love for 
democracy by wishing to pull others down in order to shove 
themselves into their places 


THE REDSKINS. 


39 

“ You are right again, Hugh ; but it is a besetting vice 
of America to regard life as all means, and as having no 
end, in a worldly point of view. I dare say men may bo 
found among us who regard it as highly presuming in any 
man to build himself an ample residence, and to announce 
by his mode of living that he is content with his present 
means, and does not wish to increase them, at the very mo- 
ment they view the suggestions of the governor as the pink 
of modesty, and excessively favourable to equal rights ! I 
like that thought of yours about the house, too; in order to 
suit the ‘ spirit’ of the New York institutions, it would seem 
that a New York landlord should build oh wheels, that he 
may move his abode to some new estate, when it suits the 
pleasure of his tenants to buy him out.” 

“ Do you suppose the Rensselaers would take their money, 
the principal of the rent at seven per cent., and buy land 
with it, after their experience of the uncertainty of such 
possessions among us?” 

“Not they,” said my uncle Ro, laughing. “No, no 1 
they would sell the Manor-House, and Beverwyck, for tav- 
erns ; and then any one might live in them who would pay 
the principal sum of the cost of a dinner; bag their dollars, 
and proceed forthwith to Wall street, and commence the 
shaving of notes— that occupation having been decided, as 
I see by the late arrivals, to be highly honourable and 
praiseworthy. Hitherto they have been nothing but drones ; 
but, by the time they can go to the quick with their dollars, 
they will become useful members of society, and be honoured 
and esteemed accordingly.” 

What next might have been said I do not know, for just 
then we were interrupted by a visit from our common 
l>anker, and the discourse was necessarily changed. 


40 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER III. 

O, when shall I visit the land of my birth, 

The loveliest land on the face of the earth ? 

When shall I those scenes of affection explore, 

I Our forests, our fountains, 

Our hamlets, our mountains, 

I With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore 1” 

; ’ Montgomery. 

! IT was truly news for an American, who had been so 
I long cut off from intelligence from home, thus suddenly to 
j be told that some of the scenes of the middle ages — scenes 
I connected with real wrongs and gross abuses of human 
I rights — were about to be enacted in his own land ; that 
country which boasted itself, not only to be the asylim 
of the oppressed, but the conservator of the right. 1 was 
grieved at what I had heard, for, during my'travels, I had 
cherished a much-loved image of justice and political excel- 
lence, that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My 
uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step 
that indeed was required by prudence. 1 was now of an 
I age to enter into the full possession of my own property (so 
j far as “ new laws and new lords” would permit) ; and the 
j letters received by my late guardian, as well as certain 
j newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great 
I many of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the associa- 
tion, paid tribute for the support of “ Injins,” and were get- 
ting to be as bad as any of the rest of them, so far as 
designs and schemes to plunder were concerned, though 
they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was 
ascribed by our agent to the fact that many leases were 
about to fall in, and it would be in my power to substitute 
more honest and better disposed successors for the preseni 
occupants of the several farms. Measures were taken ac- 
cordingly for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we 
might reach home late in the month of May. 

“ If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial 
or two to the legislature,” observed my uncle, a day or two 


THE R EDSKINS. 


41 

I before vve proceeded to Havre to join the packet. “ { have 
I a strong desire to protest against the invasion of my rights 
I as a freeman that is connected with some of their contem- 
plated laws. 1 do not at all like the idea of being abridged 
of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can 
obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra 
I reformers of free and equal* New York. It is wonderful 
Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon 
as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics, 
religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philan- 
thropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human 
nature in one man’s hiring a farm from another for as long 
a term as he can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in 
their opinions on free trade ! So free-trade are some of the 
journals which think it a capital thing to prevent landlords 
and tenants from making their own bargains, that they have 
actually derided the idea of having established fares for 
hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the par- 
ties stand in the rain and higgle about the price, on the fVee- 
trade principle. Some of these men are either active agents 
in stimulating the legislature to rob the citizen of this very 
simple control of his property, or passive lookers-on while 
others do it.” 

'‘Votes, sir, votes.” 

“ It is, indeed, votes, sir, votes ; nothing short of votes 
could reconcile these men to their own inconsistencies. As 
for yourself, Hugh, it might be well to get rid of that cano- 
pied pew ” 

“ Of what canopied pew ? I am sure I do not understand 
you.” 

“ Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew’s 
Church, at Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it — a 
relic of our colonial opinions and usages?’ 

“ Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy, 
and, to own the truth, a very ugly thing, that I have always 
supposed was placed there, by those who built the church, 
by way of ornament.” 

’ “ That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for 

I a sort of canopy, and was by no means an uncommon dis- 
tinction in the State and colony, as recently as the close of 
the last century. The church was built at the expense ot 

4 # 


42 THE REDSKINS. 

my grandfather, Gen. Littlepage, and his bosom friend and 
kinsman, Col. Dirck Pollock, both good Whigs and gallant 
defenders of the liberty of their country. They thought it 
proper that the Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and 
that is the state in which they caused the building to be pre- 
sented to my father. The old work still stands ; and Dun- 
ning writes me that, among the other arguments used against 
your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished 
from those of the rest of the congregation.” 

“ It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it bo 
known that I have ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing 
a nuisance, and detestable as an ornament. I have never 
even associated it in my mind with personal distinction, but 
have always supposed it was erected with a view to embel- 
lish the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where 
such an excrescence would excite the least envy.” 

“ In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite 
naturally. Forty years ago, such a thing might have been 
done, and 'a majority of the parishioners would have seen 
in it nothing out of place. But that day has gone by ; and 
you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the very 
things created by your family and yourself, you will actu- 
ally have fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money 
will purchase, than any man around you. The simple fact 
that St. Andrew’s Church was built by your great-grand- 
father, and by him presented to the congregation, will di- 
minish your claim to have a voice in its affairs with many 
of the congregation.” 

“ This is so extraordinary, that I musk ask the reason.” 

“ The reason is connected with a principle so obviously 
belonging to human nature generally, and to American 
nature in particular, that I wonder you ask it. It is envy. 
Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for instance, no one 
would think anything of it.” 

“ Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves 
ridiculous by silting in a pew that was distinguished from 
those of their neighbours. The absurdity of the contrast 
would strike every one.” 

“ And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist 
in your case, that your seat is envied. No one envies ab- 
surdity. However, you will readily admit, Hugh, that a 


I THEREDSKINS. 43 

I 

thurch, and a church-yard, are the two last places in which 
human distinctions ought to be exhibited. All are equal in 
the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are 
equal in the grave. I have ever been averse to everything 
ike worldly distinction in a congregation, and admire the 
usage of the Romish Church in even dispensing with pews 
altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have a 
j general connexion with history, so that they may be tole- 
j rated to a certain point, though notorious liars.” 

I “ I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for 
! all distinctions, and shall be happy on every account to get 
j rid of my canopy, though that has an historical connexion, 
j also. I am quite innocent of any feeling of pride while sit- 
I ting under it, though I will confess to some of shame at its 
j quizzical shape, when I see it has attracted the eyes of intel 
ligent strangers.” j 

“ It is but natural that you should feel thus ; for, while j 

we may miss distinctions and luxuries to which we have | 

ever been accustomed, they rarely excite pride in the pos | 
sessor, even while they awaken envy in the looker-on.” 1 

“ Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do j 

with the rents, or my legal rights.” j 

When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that ; 

it is believed may serve a turn. No man who had a good | 

legal claim for property, would ever think of urging any | 

other ; nor would any legislator who had sound and suffi- j 

cient reasons for his measures — reasons that could properly 1 

justify him before God and man for his laws — have recourse | 

to slang to sustain him. If these anti-renters were right, j 

they would have no need of secret combinations, of dis- j 

guises, blood-and-thunder names, and special agents in the 
legislature of the land. The right requires no false aid to 
make it appear the right ; but the wrong must get such sup- 
port as it can press into its service. Your pew is called 
aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called » 

a patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away ; < 

and it is hated, and you wdth it, for the very reason that you 
can sit in it and not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose 
i vou have apt examined very closely the papers I gave you 
i to read ?” ^ 

' ■“ Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash. 


44 


THE REDSKINS 


1 


“ Worse than trash, Hugh ; with some of the locsesi 
principles, and most atrocious feelings, that degrade poor 
human nature. Some of the reformers propose that no man 
shall hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others 
lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle that nc 
man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions 
i to that effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legis- 
I I at u re.” 

I “Which has taken care not to allude to their purport, j 
I either in debate or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect j 
j in the reports.” i 

I “Ay, 1 dare say the slang-whangers of those honourable j 
bodies will studiously keep all such enormities out of sight, j 
as some of them doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the 
present landlords, as soon as they can get the feet out of 
them which are now in. But these are the projects and the 
petitions in the columns of the journals, and they speak for 
themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to I 
be a landlord.” i 

“ I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have pe. 
titioned the legislature to order an inquiry into my title. 

Now, we hold from the crown ” 

“ So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh ! hold from a crown 
in a republican country ! I am amazed you are not ashamed 
to own it. Do you not know, boy, that it has been gravely 
contended in a court of justice that, in obtaining our na- j 
tional independence from the King of Great Britain, the 
j people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be 
j declared void and of none effect ?” 

I “ That is an absurdity of which I had not heard,” I an- 
j swered, laughing; “why, the people of New York, who 
held all their lands under the crown, would in that case 
have been conquering them for other persons I My good 
grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually 
fought and bled in the revolution, must hkave been very silly 
thus to expose themselves to take away their own estates, in , 

. order to give them to a set of immigrants from New England 
and other parts of the world !” 

“ Quite justly said, Hugh,” added my uncle, joining in 
the laugln “ Nor is this half of the argument. The State, : 

. too, in its corporate character, has been playing swindler all | 


theredskins 4b 

this time. You may not know the fact, but I as your guar- 
dian do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the crown 
when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest, 
were claimed by the State; and that, wanting money to 
save the people from taxes, it commuted with us, receiving 
a certain gross sum in satisfaction of all future claims.” 

“Ay, that I did not know. Can the fact be shown 1” 

“ Certainly — it is well known to all old fellows like my- 
self, for it was a very general measure, and very generally 
entered into by all the landholders. In our case, the 
receipts are still to be found among the family-papers. In 
the cases of the older estates, such as those of the Van 
Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favour, since^ 
the conditions to hold the land included an obligation tc 
bring so many settlers from Europe within a given time; 
conditions that were fulfilled at great cost, as you may sup- 
pose, and on which, in truth, the colony had its founda- 
tion.” 

“ How much it tells against a people’s honesty to wish 
to forget such facts, in a case like this !” 

“ There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably 
never known to those who prate about the conquered rights 
from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of 
a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the 
existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with 
its own history. The great bulk of the population of Nevv 
York have no active desire to invade what is right in this 
anti-rent struggle, having no direct interests at stake; their 
crime is a passive inactivity, which allows those who are 
either working for political advancement, or those who are 
working to obtain other men’s property, to make use of 
them, through their own laws.” 

“ But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that 
directly around Albany, to have such tenures to the land, 
and for so large a body of people to be compelled to pay 
rent, in the very heart of the State, as it might be, and in 
situations that render it desirable to leave enterprise as un- 
shackled as possible?” 

“ I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a gene- 
ral principle. One argument used by these anti-renters is, 
for instance, that the patroons, in their leases, reserved tho 



40 TIIEREDSKINS. 

milUseats. Now, what if they did ? Some one must owt 
the mill-seats; and why not the Patroon as well as another 
To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals, 
but as mere exped-iency, it must be shown that the patroona 
would not let these mill-seats at as low rents as any one 
else ; and my opinion is that they would let them at rents 
of not half the amount that would be asked, were they the 
property of so many individuals, scattered up and down the 
country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this par- 
ticular sort has some inconveniences in that particular spot, 
can there be two opinions among men of integrity about the 
mode of getting rid of it 1 Everything has its price, and, 
in a business sense, everything is entitled to its price. No 
people acknowledge this more than the Americans, or 
practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be tempt- 
ed by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let 
them be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppres- 
sion, special legislation, in order to bully or frighten them 
from the enjoyment of what is rightfully their own. If the 
State think such a description of property injurious in its 
heart, let the State imitate England in her conduct towards 
the slave-holders — bi/y them out ; not tax them out, and 
icrong them out, and annoy them out. But, Hugh, enough 
of this at present; we shall have much more than we want 
of it when we get home. iVmong my letters, I have one 
from each of my other wards.” 

“ ‘ Still harping on my daughter,’ sir !” I answered, laugh- 
ing. “ I hope that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, 
and the meek Miss Anne Marston, are both perfectly well?” 

“ Botl) in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I 
must really let you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think 
it is quite creditable to her : I will step into my room and 
get it.” 

I ought to let the reader into a secret hero that will have 
some connexion with what is to follow. A dead-set had 
been made at me, previously to leaving home, to induce me 
to marry either of three young ladies — Miss Henrietta Cold- 
brooko. Miss Anne Mansion, and Miss Opportunity New- 
come. The advances in the cases of Miss Henrietta Cold- 
brooke and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro 
who, as their guardian, had a natural interest in their making 


THE REDSKINS. 


47 : 

j what he was pleased to think might be a good connexion for j 

j either ; while the advances on account of Miss Opportunity | 

Newcome came from herself. Under such circumstances, | 

it may be well to say who these young ladies actually j 

i were. > 

I Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Eng- 
j tishman of good family, and some estate, who had emigrated j 
j lo America and married, under the impulse of certain theo- 
j ries in politics which induced him to imagine that this was 
j the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and j 

I dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing | 

I poorer under the consequences of indiscreet investments, I 

I and who at last got to be so very English in his wishes and j 

j longings, as to assert that the common Muscovy was a bet- ! 

I ter bird than the canvas-back ! He died, however, in time | 

I to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle’s 1 

! excellent management, was known by me to be rather more i 

j than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand- dollars, and | 
which produced a nett eight thousand a-year. This made ; 

I Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent friend ! 
in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar. 

I knew that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in 
his letters, in the way of hints touching myself; and my [ 
dear, excellent, honest-hearted, straightforward old grand 
mother had once let fall an expression, in one of her letters | 
to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had 
actually awakened as much interest in the young lady’s ■ 
bosom, as could well be connected wdth what was necessa- . | 
rily nothing but curiosity. | 

Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very | 

diminished scale. She had rather more than three thousand | 

a-year in buildings in town, and a pretty little sum of about j 

sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its savings. She | 
was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each j 
i>{ whom had already received as much as the sister, and \ 
I each of whom, as is very apt to be the case with the heirs of 
I New York merchants, was already in a fair way of getting 
rid of his portion in riotous living. Nothing does a young 
American so much good, under such circumstances, as to 
induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a 
downright fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in 


THE REDSKINS. 


48 

so short a time, that the agony is soon over. If only vain 
and frivolous, because young and ill-educated, the latler 
being a New York endemic, but with some foundation of 
native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy about 
the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered, 
soon loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of 
his youth, and comes out such a gentleman as one can only 
make who has entirely thrown away the precious moments 
I of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood, with capacity 

1 to build on, the chances are that the scales wilt fall from his 

i eyes very fast on landing in the old world — that his ideas 

I and tastes will take a new turn — that he will become what 

nature intended him for, an intellectual man; and that he 
will finally return home, conscious alike of the evils and 
blessings, the advantages and disadvantages, of his own 
system and country— a wiser, and it is to be hoped a better 
man. How the experiment had s«icceeded with the Mars- 
I . tons, neither myself nor my uncle knew ; for they had paid 
j their visit while we were in the East, and had already re- 

; turned to America. As for Miss Anne, she had a mother 

I to take care of her mind and person, though I had learned 

i she was pretty, sensible and discreet. 

i Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest, 
I a village on my own property ; a rural beauty, and of rural 
education, virtues, manners and habits. As Ravensnest was 
not particularly advanced in civilization, or, to make use of 
the common language of the country, was not a very “ aris- 
tocratic place,” I shall not dwell on her accomplishments, 
which did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essen- 
I tially ornament my manuscript. 

I Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son 
j of Jason, of the house of Newcome. In using the term 
I “house,” I adopt it understandingly ; for the family had 

j dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of which 

I the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated 
j with the name of Newcome from time immemorial ; that is, 
for about eighty years. All that time had a Newcome been 
the tenant of the mill, tavern, store and farm, that lay near- 
est the village of Ravensnest, or Little Nest, as it was com- 
monly called; and it may not be impertinent to the moral 
of my narrative if I add that, for ^11 that time, and for 


THE REDSKINS. 


49 

Bonietliing longer, had I and my ancestors been tlie land- 
lords. 1 beg the reader to bear this last fact in mind, as 
there will soon be occasion to show that there was a strong 
disposition in certain persons to forget it. 

As i have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid. 
There was also a brother, who was named Seneca, or 
Sene/fT/, as he always pronounced it himself, the son of 
Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at Ravensnest. 
Tiiis Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted 
by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the 
Court of Common Pleas, in and for the county of Washing- 
ton. As there had been a sort of hereditary education 
among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning with 
Jason, and ending with Seneca; and, as the latter was at 
the bar, 1 had occasionally been thrown into the society of 
boili brother and sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond 
of visiting the Nest, as my house was familiarly called, 
! Ravensnest being its true name, whence those of the “ pa- 
I tent” and village; and as Opportunity had early manifested 
i a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear 
i young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me 
during the vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had 
many occasions of being brought within the influence of her 
charms — opportunities that, 1 leel bound to state. Opportu- 
nity did not neglect. I have understood that her mother, 
who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love 
by a very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That 
lady was still living, and may be termed Opportunity the 
Great, while the daughter can be styled Opportunity the 
Less. There was very little difference between my own 
years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last 
passed through the fiery ordeal at th.. sinister age of twenty, 
there was not much danger in encountering the risk anew, 
now I was five years older. But I must return to my uncle 
and the letter of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke. 

“ Here it is, Hugh,” cried my guardian, gaily; “and a 
capital letter it is! I wish I could read the whole of it to 
you ; but the two girls made me promise never to show their 
letters to any one, which could mean only you, before they 
w'ouid promise to write anything to me beyond common- 
I places. Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally 
VoL. I. — 5 


THE REDSKINS. 


50 

and the correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me. 

I think, however, I might venture just to give you one 
extract.” 

“You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of 
treachery in it, that I confess I would rather not be acces- 
sary to. If Miss Coldbrooke do not wish me to read what 
she writes, she can hardly wish that you should read any 
of it to me.” 

Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissa- 
tisfied with my nonchalance. He read the letter through to 
himself, however, laughing here, smiling there, then mut- 
tering “ capital !” “ good !” “ charming girl !” “ worthy of 
Hannah More !” &c. &c., as if just to provoke my curiosity. 
But I had no desire to read “ Hannah More,” as any young 
fellow of five-and-twenty can very w^ell imagine, and I stood 
it all with the indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to 
knock under, and put the letters in his writing-desk. 

“ Well, the giris will be glad to see us,” he said, after a 
moment of reflection, “ and not a little surprised. In my 
very last letter to my mother, I sent them word that we 
should not be home until October; and now we shall see 
them as early as June, at least.” 

“Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt, for the 
other two young ladies, they have .so many friends and 
relations to care for, that I fancy our movements give them 
no great concern.” 

“ Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove. 
They take the liveliest interest in our proceedings, and I 
speak of my return as if they look for it with the greatest 
expectation and joy.” 

I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer ; but fair- 
dealing compels me to record it. 

“ I dare say they do, sir,” was my reply ; “ but what 
young lady does not look with ^expectation and joy’ for the 
return of a friend, who is known to have a lono^ purse, 
from Paris !” ° 

“Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls; 
and, if I can help it, you shall have neither.” 

“ Thank ’ee, sir !” 1 

“ Poh ! this is worse than silly — it is rude. I dare say I 
xieither would accept you, were you to offer to-morrow.” I 


THE REDSKINS. 


51 

“ I trust not, s^r, for her own sake. It would be a singu- 
larly palpable demonstration were either to accept a man 
she barely knew, and whom she had not seen since she was 
fifteen.” 

Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly 
vexed ; and, as I loved him with all my heart, though I did 
not love match-making, I turned the discourse, in a pleasant 
way, on our approaching departure. 

“I’ll tell you what I Ml do, Hugh,” cried my uncle, who 
was a good deal of a boy in some things, for the reason, I 
suppose, that he was an old bachelor; “I’ll just have wrong 
names entered on board the packet, and we’ll surprise all 
our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray us, 
we know ; and, for that matter, we can send them both 
home by the way of England. Each of us has trunks in 
London to be looked after, and let the two fellows go by the 
way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and occurred 
most happily.” 

“ With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to 
me at sea than an automaton would be, and I shall be glad 
to get rid of his rueful countenance. He is a capital ser- 
vant on terra firma, but a perfect Niobe on the briny main.” 

The thing was agreed on ; and, a day or two afterwards, 
both our body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and 
Hubert the German, were on their way to England. My 
uncle let his apartment again, for he always maintained I 
should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in it ; and 
we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was 
little danger of our being known on board the packet, and 
we had previously ascertained that there was not an ac- 
quaintance of either in the ship. There was a strong family 
resemblance between my uncle and myself, and we passed 
for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and 
young Mr. Davidson, of Maryland — or Myr-r-land, as it is 
Doric to call that State. We had no concern in this part 
of the deception, unless abstaining from calling my sup- 
] posed father “ uncle,” as one would naturally do in strange 
society, can be so considered. 

The passage itself — by the way, I wish all landsmen 
would be as accurate as I am here, and understand that a 
w voyage” means “out” and “home,” or “thence” and 


THE REDSKINS. 


52 

“ back again,” while a “ passage” means from place to 
place — but our passage was pregnant with no events worth 
recording. VVe had the usual amount of good and bad 
weather, the usual amount of eating and drinking, and tho 
usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance, perhaps, 
contributed to the digesting of a further schemer of my 
uncle’s, which it is now necessary to state. 

A re-perusal of his letters and papers had induced him to 
think the anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even, 
than he had first supposed. The combination on the part 
of the tenants, we learned also from an intelligent New 
Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much further 
than our accounts had given us reason to believe ; and it 
was deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many 
cases, to be seen on their own estates. Insult, personal de- 
gradation, or injury, and even death, it was thought, might 
be the consequences, in many cases. The blood actually 
spilled had had the effect to check the more violent demon- 
strations, it is true; but the latent determination to achieve 
their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants, 
in the face of all their tardy professions of moderation, and 
a desire for nothing but what was right. In this case, what 
was right was the letter and spirit of the contracts ; and 
nothing was plainer than the fact that these were not what 
was wanted. 

Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when 
connected with a practice that llatly contradicts them. It 
was only too apparent to all who chose to look into the mat- 
ter, and that by evidence which could not mislead, that the 
great body of the tenants in various counties of New York 
were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not 
conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their land- 
lords, and insomuch that they were bent on doing that which 
should be discountenanced by every honest man in the com- 
munity. The very fact that they supported, or in any man- 
ner connived at, the so-called “ Injin” system, spoke all that 
was ne'cessary as to their motives; and, when we come to 
consider that these “ Injins” had already proceeded to the 
extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that 
things must soon reach a crisis. 

My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters 



THE REDSKINS. 


53 

Calmly, and decided on our course, I trust, with prudence. 
As that decision has proved to be pregnant with conse- 
quences that are likely to affect my future life, I shall now 
briefly give an outline of what induced us to adopt it. 

It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person, 
while it might be hazardous to do so openly. The Nest 
house stood in the very centre of the estate, and, ignorant 
as we were of the temper of the tenants, it might be indis- 
creet to let ‘our presence be known ; and circumstances 
favoured our projects of concealment. ^We were not ex- 
pected to reach the country at all until autumn, or “ fall,” 
as that season of the year is poetically called in America ; 
and this gave us the means of reaching the property unex- 
pectedly, and, as wo hoped, undetected. Our arrangement, 
then, was very simple, and will be best related in the course 
of the narrative. 

The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were 
twenty-nine days from land to land. It was on a pleasant af- 
ternoon in May when the hummock-like heights of Navesink 
were first seen from the deck ; and, an hour later, we came 
in sight of the tower- resembling sails of the coasters which 
were congregating in the neighbourhood of the low point 
of land that is so very appropriately called Sandy Hook. 
The light-houses rose out of the water soon after, and objects . 
on the shore of New Jersey next came gradually out of the 
misty back-ground, until we got near enough to be boarded, 
first by the pilot, and next by the new’s-boat ; the first pre- 
ceding the last for a wonder, news usually being far more 
active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent 
evil. My uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a tho- 
rough scrutiny, and, finding no one on board her whom he 
had ever before seen, he bargained for a passage up to town. 

We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New 
York were striking eight. A custom-house officer had exa- 
mined our carpet-bags and permitted them to pass, and we 
had disburthened ourselves of the effects in the ship, by de- 
siring the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a 
town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine 
being only kept up in winter, for the use of my sister and 
an aunt who kindly took charge of her during the season, 
while my uncle’s was opened principally for his mother. 

5"* 


54 theredskins. 

At that season, we had reason to think neither was tenanted 
but by one or two old family servants ; and it was our cue 
also to avoid them. But “Jack Dunning,” as my uncle 
always called him, was rather more of a friend than of an 
agent; and he had a bachelor establishment in Chamber 
Street that was precisely the place we wanted. Thither, 
then, we proceeded, taking the route by Gi’eenwich Street, 
fearful of meeting some one in Broadway by whom we 
might be recognised. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Cit. “Speak, speak.” 

1 Cit. “You are all resolved rather to die than to famish ?” 

Cit. “ Resolved, resolved.” 

1 Cit. “ First you know, Caius Marcus is chief enemy to the 
people.” 

Cit. “We know’t, we know’t.” 

1 Cit. “ Let’s kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price. 

Is ’t a verdict ?” 

Coriolanus. 

The most inveterate Manhattanese, if he be anything of 
a man of the world, must confess* that New York is, after 
all, but a Rag-Fair sort of a place, so far as the eye is con- 
cerned. I was particularly struck with this fact, even at 
that hour, as we went stumbling along over an atrociously 
bad side-walk, my eyes never at rest, as any on© can ima- 
gine, after five years of absence. I could not help noting 
the incongruities ; the dwellings of marble, in close prox- 
imity with miserable, low constructions in wood ; the 
wretched pavements, and, above all, the country air, of a 
town of near four hundred thousand souls. I very well 
know that many of the defects are to be ascribed to the 
rapid growth of the place, which gives it a sort of hobble- 
dehoy look; but, being a Manhattanese by birth, I thought 
I might just as well own it all, at once, if it were only for 
the information of a particular portion of my townsmen. 


THE RED SKINS. 


55 

who may have been under a certain delusion on the subject. 
As for comparing the Bay of New York with that of Na- 
ples on the score of beauty,! shall no more be guilty of any 
such lolly, to gratify the cockney feelings of Broadway and 
Bond street, than I should be guilty of the folly of compar- 
ing the commerce of the ancient Parthenope with that of 
old New York, in order to excite complacency in the bosom 
of some bottegajo in the Toledo, or on the Chiaja. Our 
fast-growing Manhattan is a great town in its way — a won- 
derful place — without a parallel, I do believe, on earth, as a 
proof of enterprise and of the accumulation of business; 
and it is not easy to make such a town appear ridiculous by 
any jibes and innuendoes th^t relate to the positive things of 
this world, though nothing is easier than to do it for itself 
by setting up to belong to the sisterhood of such places as 
London, Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. There is too 
much of the American notion of the omnipotence of num- 
bers among us Manhattanese, which induces us to think that 
the higher rank in the scale of places is to be obtained by 
majorities. No, no ; let us remember the familiar axiom 
of “ ne sutor ultra crepidum.” New York is just the queen 
of “ business,” but not yet the queen of the world. Every 
man who travels ought to bring back something to the com- 
mon stock of knowledge ; and I shall give a hint to my 
townsmen, by which I really think they may be able to tell 
for themselves, as by feeling a sort of moral pulse, when 
the town is rising to the level of a capital. When simpli- 
city takes the place of pretension, is one good rule; but, as 
it may require a good deal of practice, or native taste, to 
ascertain this fact, I will give another that is obvious to the 
senses, which will at least be strongly symptomatic; and 
that is this : When squares cease to be called joar/rs ,• when 
horse-bazaars and fashionable streets are not called Tatter- 
sails and Bond street; when Washington Market is re- 
christened Bear Market, and Franklin and Fulton and other 
great philosophers and inventors are plucked of the unme- 
rited honours of having shambles named after them; when 
commercial is not used as a prefix to emporium ; when peo- 
ple can return from abroad without being asked “ if they 
are reconciled to their country,” and strangers are not 
interrogated at the second question, “ how do you like our 


THE REDSKINS. 


56 

^ity then may it be believed that the town is beginning 
to go alone, and that it may set up for itself. 

Although New York is, out of all question, decidedly 
provincial, labouring under the peculiar vices of provincial 
habits and provincial modes of thinking, it contains many 
a man of the world, and some, too, who have never quilted 
their own firesides. Of this very number was the Jack 
Dunning, as my uncle Ro called him, to whose house in 
Chamber street we were now proceeding. 

“ If we were going anywhere but to Dunning’s,” said m3) 
uncle, as we turned out of Greenwich street, “ I should 
have no fear of being recognised by the servants ,* for no 
one here thinks of keeping a man six months. Dunning, 
however, is of the old school, and does not like new faces ,* 
so he will have no Irishman at his door, as is the case with 
two out of three of the houses at which one calls, now-a- 
days.” 

In another minute we were at the bottom of Mr. Dun- 
ning’s “ sloup” — what an infernal contrivance it is to get in 
and out at the door by, in a hotty-cold climate like ours ! — - 
but, there we were, and I observed that my uncle hesitated. 

“ Parlez au Suisse,” said I ; “ ten to one he is fresh 
from some Bally-this, or Bally-that.” 

“ No, no ; it must be old Garry the nigger” — my uncle 
Rowas of the old school himself, and wovld say “nigger” — 
“ Jack can never have parted with Garry.” 

“ Garry” was the diminutive of Garret, a somewhat com- 
mon Dutch Christian name among us. 

We rang, and the door opened — in about five minutes. 
Although the terms “aristocrat” and “aristocracy” are 
much in men’s mouths in America just now, as well as those 
of “ feudal” and the “ middle ages,” and this, too, as applied 
to modes of living as well as to leasehold tenures, there is 
but one porter in the whole country ; and he belongs to the 
White Flouse, at Washington. I am afraid even that per- 
sonage, royal porter as he is, is often out of the way ; and 
the reception he gives when he is there, is not of the mosi, 
brilliant and princely character. When we had waited three 
minutes, my uncle Ro said — 

“I am afraid Garry is taking a nap by the kitchen-fire; 
1 'll try him again.” 


THEREDSKINS. 57 

Uncle Ro did try again, and, two minutes later, the door 
opened. 

“ What is your pleasure 1” demanded the Suisse^ with a 
strong brogue. 

My uncle started back as if heliad met a sprite ; but he 
asked if Mr. Dunning was at home. 

“ He is, indeed, sir.” 

“ Is he alone, or is he with company ?” 

“ He is, indeed.” 

“ But what is he, indeed ?” 

“ He is thaty 

“Can you take the trouble to explain which that it is? 
Has he company, or is he alone?” 

“Just that^ sir. Walk in, and he’ll be charmed to see 
you. A fine gentleman is his honour, and pleasure it is to 
live with him, I’m sure!” 

“ How long is it since you left Ireland, my friend ?” 

“ Isn’t it a mighty bit, now, yer honour !” answered Bar- 
ney, closing the door. “ T’irteen weeks, if it’s one day.” 

“ Well, go ahead, and show us the way. This is a bad 
omen, Hugh, to find that Jack Dunning, of all men in the 
country, should have changed his servant — good, quiet, lazy, 
respectable, old, grey-headed Garry the nigger — for such a 
bogtrotter as that fellow, who climbs those stairs as if ac- 
customed only to ladders.” 

Dunning was in his library on the second floor, where he 
passed most of his evenings. His surprise was equal to 
that which my uncle had just experienced, when he saw us 
two standing before him. A significant gesture, however, 
caused him to grasp his friend and client’s hand in silence ; 
and nothing was said until the Sioiss had left the room, 
although the fellow stood with the door in his hand a most 
inconvenient time, just to listen to what might pass between 
the host and his guests. At length we got rid of him, 
honest, well-meaning fellow that he was, after all; and the 
door was closed. 

“ My last letters have brought you home, Roger ?” said 
Jack, the moment he could speak; for feeling, as well as 
caution, had something to do with his silence. 

“ They have, indeed. A great change must have come 
over the country, by what I hear; and one of the very 


THE llEDSKINS. 


58 

worst symptoms is that you have turned away Garry, and 
got an Irishman in his place.” 

“Ah ! old men must die, as well as old principles, I find. 

My poor fellow went off in a fit last week, and I took that 1 
Irishman as a j)is aller. -After losing poor Garry, who was ; 
born a slave in my father’s house, I became indifferent, and j 
accepted the first comer from the intelligence office.” 

“ We must be careful, Dunning, not to give up too soon. | 
But hear my story, and then to other matters.” ' 

My uncle then explained his wish to be incognito, and his j 
motive. Dunning listened attentively, but seemed uncertain I 
whether to dissent or approve. The matter was discussed j 
briefly, and then it was postponed for further consideration. | 
“ But how comes on this great moral dereliction, called I 
anti-rentism ? Is it on the wane, or the increase?” | 

“ On the wane, to the eye, perhaps ; but on the increase, ! 
so far as principles, the right, and facts, are concerned, i 
The necessity of propitiating votes is tempting politicians of j 
all sides to lend themselves to it ; and there is imminent ! 
danger now that atrocious wrongs will be committed under 
the form of law.” ! 

“In what way can the law touch an existing contract? 
The Supreme Court of the United Stales will set that right.” I 
“That is the only hope of the honest, let me tell you. j 
It is folly to expect that a body composed of such men as I 
usually are sent to the State Legislature, can resist the I 
temptation to gain power by conciliating numbers. That is j 
out of the question. Individuals of these bodies may resist ; ! 

but the tendency there will be as against the few, and in 
favour of the many, bolstering their theories by clap-traps 
and slang political phrases. The scheme to tax the rents, 
under the name of quit-rents, will be resorted to, in the first 
place.” 

“ That will be a most iniquitous proceeding, and would 
justify resistance just as much as our ancestors ^were justi- 
fied in resisting the taxation of Great Britain.” 

“ It would more so, for here we have a written covenant 
to render taxation equal. The landlord already pays one 
tax on each of these farms — a full and complete tax, that 
is reserved from the rent in the original bargain with the 
tenant ; and now the wish is to tax the rents themselves j 


THE REDSKINS.. 


59 

and this not to raise revenue, for that is confessedly not 
wanted, but most clearly with a design to increase the in- 
ducements for the landlords to part with their properly. If 
that can be done, the sales will be made on the principle 
that none but the tenant must be, as indeed no one else can 
be, the purchaser ; and then we shall see a queer exhibition- 
men parting with their property under the pressure of a 
clamour Uiat is backed by as much law as can be pressed 
into its service, with a monopoly of price on the side of the 
purchaser, and all in a country professing the most sensitive 
love of liberty, and where the prevailing class of politicians 
are free-trade men !” 

“ There is no end of these inconsistencies among poli- 
ticians.” 

“ There is no end of knavery when "men submit to 
‘ noses,’ instead of principles. Call things by their right 
names, Ro, as they deserve to be. This matter is so plain, 
that he who runs can read.” 

“ But will this scheme of taxation succeed ? It does not 
affect us, for instance, as our leases are for three lives.” 

“Oh! that is nothing; for you they contemplate a law 
that will forbid the letting of land, for the future, for a pe- 
riod longer than five years. Hugli s leases will soon be 
falling in, and then he can’t make a slave of any man for a 
longer period than five years.” 

“ Surely no one is so silly as to think of passing such a 
law, with a view to put down aristocracy, and to benefit the 
tenant !” I cried, laughing. 

“Ay, you may laugh, young sir,” resumed Jack Dun- 
ning; “but such is the intention, I know very well what 
will be your course of reasoning ; you will say, the longer 
the lease, the better for the tenant, if the bargain be reason- 
ably good ; and landlords cannot ask more for the use of 
their lands than they are really worth in this country, there 
happening to be more land than there are men to work it. 
No, no ; landlords rather get less for their lands than they 
are worth, instead of more, for that plain reason. To com- 
pel the tenant to take a lease, therefore, for a term as short 
as five years, is to injure him, you think ; to place him 
more at the control of his landlord, through the little inte- 
rests connected with the cost and trouble of moving, and 


THE REDSKINS. 


GO 

through the natural desire he may possess to cut the mea. ! 
; dows he has seeded, and to get the full tjencfit of manure 
he has made and carted. I see how you reason, young sir; 

! but you are behind the age — you are sadl}'^ behind the age.” 

I “ The age is a queer one, if I am ! All over the world it 
! is believed that long leases are favours, or advantages, to 

I tenants ; and nothing can make it otherwise, cceteris pari- 

j hus. Then what good will the tax do, after violating right 

I and moral justice, if not positive law, to lay it? On a hun- 

j dred dollars of rent, I should have to pay some fifty-five 

i cents of taxes, as I am assessed on other things at Ravens- 

i nest ; and does anybody suppose I will give up an estate 

j that has passed through five generations of my family, on 

; account of a tribute like that !” 

i “ Mighty well, sir — mighty well, sir! This is fine talk; 

I but I would advise you not to speak of yovr ancestors at all. 
j Landlords can’t name their ancestors with impunity just 
! now.” 

I “ I name mine only as showing a reason for a natural 
i regard for my paternal acres.” 

I “ That you might do, if you were a tenant ; but not as a 
I landlord. In a landlord, it is aristocratic and intolerable 

I pride, and to the last degree offensive — as Dogberry says, 

j ‘ tolerable and not to be endured.’ ” 

I “ But it is di fact, and it is natural one should have some 
I feelings connected with it.” 

i “ The more it is a fact, the less it will be liked. People 
! associate social position with wealth and estates^ but not 
i with farms ; and the longer one has such things in a family, 
j the worse for them !” 

! “ I do believe. Jack,” put in my uncle Ro, “ that the rule 

I which prevails all over the rest of the world is reversed 

i here, and that with us it is- thought a family’s claim is less- 

I ened, and not increased, by time.” 

I “To be sure it is!” answered Dunning, without giving 
‘ me a chance to speak. “ Do you know that you wrote me' 

I a very silly letter once, from Switzerland, about a family 

I called do Blonay, that had been seated on the same rock, in 
I a little castle, some six or eight hundred years, and the sort 
! of respect and veneration the circumstance awakened? 
i Well, all that was very foolish, as you will find when you 


THE REDSKINS. 61 

pay your incognito visit to Ravensnest. I will not antici- 
pate the result of your schooling ; but, go to school.” 

“ As the Rensselaers and other great landlords, who have 
estates on durable leases, will not be very likely to give 
them up, except on terms that will suit themselves, for a tax 
as insignificant as that mentioned by Hugh,” said ray uncle, 

‘‘ what does the legislature anticipate from passing the law ?” 

“ That its members will be called the friends of the peo- 
ple, and not the friends of the landlords. Would any man 
tax his friends, if he could help it ?” 

“ But what will that portion of the people who compose 
the anti-renters gain by such a measure?” 

“ Nothing ; and their complaints will be just as loud, and 
their lor)gings as active, as ever. Nothing that can have 
any effect on what they wish, will be accomplished by any 
legislation in the matter. One committee of the assembly 
has actually reported, you may remember, that the State 
might assume the lands, and sell them to the tenants, or 
some one else ; or something of the sort.” 

“ The constitution of the United States must be Hughfs y 
segis.” 

“And that alone will protect him, let me tell you. But 
for that noble provision of the constitution of the Federal 
Government, his estate would infallibly go for one-half its 
true value. There is no use in mincing things, or in affect- 
ing to believe men more honest than they are — an infernal 

FEELING OF SELFISHNESS IS SO MUCH TALKED OF, AND 
CITED, AND REFERRED TO, ON ALL OCCASIONS, IN THIS 
COUNTRY, THAT A MAN ALMOST RENDERS HIMSELF RIDICU- 
LOUS WHO APPEARS TO REST ON PRINCIPLE.” 

“Have you heard what the tenants of Ravensnest aim 
at, in particular?” 

“ They want to get Hugh’s lands, that’s all; nothing 
more, I can assure you.” 

“On what conditions, pray?” demanded I. 

“As you ‘ light of chaps,’ to use a saying of their own. 
Some even profess a willingness to pay a fair price.’ 

“ But I do not wish to sell for even a fair price. I have 
no desire to part with property that is endeared to me by 
family fe^b'ng and association. I have an expensive house 
and establishment on my estate, which obtains its principal 

VoL. I.— 6 


THE R E DSKINS 


62 

value from the circumstance that it is so placed that I can 
look after my interests with the least inconvenience to my- 
self. What can I do with the money but buy another 
estate ? and I prefer this that I have.” 

“ Poh ! boy, you can shave notes, you ’II recollect,” said 
uncle Ro, drily. “ The calling is decided to be honourable 
by the highest tribunal ; and no man should be above his 
business.” 

“ You have no right, sir, in a free country,” returned the 
caustic Jack Dunning, “to prefer one estate to another, 
more especially when other people want it. Your lands are 
leased to honest, hard-working tenants, who can eat their 
dinners without silver forks, and whose ancestors ” 

“ Stop !” I cried, laughing ; “ I bar all ancestry. No 
man has a right to ancestry in a free country, you ’ll re- 
member !” 

“ That means landlord-ancestry ; as for tenant-ancestry, 
one can have a pedigree as long as the Maison de Levis. 
No, sir ; every tenant you have has every right to demand 
that his sentiment of family feeling should be respected. 
His father planted that orchard, and he loves the apples 
better than any other apples in the world ” 

“And my father procured the grafts, and made him a 
present of them.” 

“ His grandfather cleared that field, and converted its 
ashes into pots and pearls ” 

“And my grandfather received that year ten shillings of 
rent, for land off which his received two hundred and fifty 
dollars for his ashes.” 

“ His great-grandfather, honest and excellent man-^nay, 
super-honest and confiding creature — first ‘ took up’ the land 
when a wilderness, and with his own hands felled the tim- 
her, and sowed the wheat.” 

“And got his pay twenty-fold for it all, or he would not 
have been fool enough to do it. I had a great-grandfather, 
too ; and I hope it will not be considered aristocratic if I 
venture to hint as much. He — a dishonest, pestilent knave, 
no doubt — leased that very lot for six years without any 
rent at all, in order that the * poor, confiding creature’ might 
make himself comfortable, before he commenced paying his 
sixpence or shilling an acre rent for the remainder of three 


THE REDSKINS. 


G3 

lives, with a moral certainty of getting a renewal on the 
most liberal terms known to a new country ; and who 
knew, the whole time, he could buy land in fee, within ten 
miles of his door, but who thought this a better bargain than 

thatr 

Enough of this folly,” cried uncle Ro, joining in the 
laugh ; “ we all know that, in our excellent America, he 
who has the highest claims to anything, must affect to have 
the least, to stifle the monster envy ; and, being of one mind 
as to principles, let us come to facts. What of the girls, 
Jack, and of my honoured mother?” 

“ She, noble, heroic woman ! she is at Ravensnest at this 
moment ; and, as the girls would not permit her to go alone, 
they are all with her.” 

“And did you, Jack Dunning, suffer them to go unattend- 
ed into a part of the country that is in open rebellion ?” 
demanded my uncle, reproachfully. 

“ Come, come ! Hodge Littlepage, this is very sublime as 
a theory, but not so clear when reduced to practice. I did 
not go with Mrs. Littlepage and her young fry, for the good 
and substantial reason that I did not wish to be ‘ tarred and 
feathered.’ ” 

“ So you leave them to run the risk of being ‘ tarred and 
feathered’ in your stead ?” 

“Say what you will about the cant of freedom that is 
becoming so common among us, and from which we were 
once so free ; say what you will, Ro, of the inconsistency 
of those who raise the cry of ‘ feudality,’ and ‘ aristocracy,’ 
and ‘ nobility,’ at the very moment they are manifesting a 
desire for exclusive rights and privileges in their own per- 
sons ; say what you will of dishonesty, envy, that promi- 
nent American vice, knavery, covetousness, and selfishness; 
and I will echo all you can utter; — but do not say that a 
woman can be in serious danger among any material body 
of Americans, even if anti-renters, and mock-redskins in the 
bargain.” 

‘ I believe you are right there, Jack, on reflection. Par- 
don my warmth ; but I have lately been living in the old 
world, and in a country in which women were not long 
since carried to the scaffold on account of their politics,” 

“ Because they meddled with politics. Your mother is in 



THE REDSKINS. 


64 

no serious danger, though it needs nerve in a woman to be 
able to think so. There are few women in the Slate, and 
fewer of her time of life anywhere, that would do what she 
has done ; and I give the girls great credit for sticking by 
her. Half the young men in town are desperate at the 
thought of three such charming creatures thus exposing 
themselves to insult. Your mother has only been sued.” 

“Sued! Whom does she owe, or what can she have 
done to have brought this indignity on her?” 

“ You know, or ought to know, how it is in this country, 
Littlepage ; we must have a little law, even when most bent 
on breaking it. A downright, straight-forward rascal, who 
openly sets law at defiance, is a wonder. Then we have a 
great talk of liberty when plotting to give it the deepest 
stab ; and religion even gets to share in no small portion of 
our vices. Thus it is that the anti- renters have dragged in 
the law in aid of their designs. I understand one of the 
Rensselaers has been sued for money borrowed in a ferry- 
boat to help him across a river under his own door, and for 
potatoes bought by his wife in the streets of Albany 1” 

“ But neither of the Rensselaers need borrow money to 
cross the ferry, as the ferry-men would trust him ; and no 
lady of the Rensselaer family ever bought potatoes in the | 
streets of Albany, I ’ll answer for it.” v. | 

“ You have brought back some knowledge from your I 
travels, I find 1” said Jack Dunning, with comic gravity. ^ 
“ Your mother writes me that she has been sued for twenty- I 
seven pairs of shoes furnished her by a shoemaker whom ! 
she never saw, or heard of, until she received the sum- j 
mens !” I 

“ This, then, is one of the species of annoyances that I 

has been adopted to bully the landlords out of their pro- i 

perty ?” ^ I 

“Jt is; and if the landlords have recourse even to the I 
covenants of their leases, solemnly and deliberately made, j 
and as solemnly guarantied by a fundamental law, the cry j 
is raised of ‘ aristocracy’ and ‘oppression’ by these very i 

men, and echoed by many of the creatures who get seats I 

in high places among us — or what ivould be high places, if i 

filled with men worthy of their trusts.” 

“ I see you do not mince your words, Jack.” 


THEREDSKINS. 65 

“ Why should I? Words are all that is left me. I am 
of no more weight in the government of this State than that 
Irishman, who let you in just now, will be, five years hence 
— less, for he will vote to suit a majority ; and, as I shall 
vote understandingly, my vote will probably do no one any 
good.” 

Dunning belonged to a school that mingles a good deal 
of speculative and impracticable theory, with a great deal 
of sound and just principles ; but who render themselves 
useless because they will admit of no compromises. He did 
not belong to the class of American doctrinaires^ however, 
or to those who contend — no, not contend^ for no one does 
that any longer in this country, whatever may be his opinion 
on the subject — but those who think that political power, as 
in the last resort, should be the property of the few ; for he 
was willing New York should have a very broad constitu- 
ency. Nevertheless, he was opposed to the universal suf- 
frage, in its wide extent, that does actually exist ; as I sup- 
pose quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed 
to it, in their hearts, though no political man of influence, 
now existing, has the moral calibre necessary to take the 
lead in putting it down. Dunning deferred to principles, 
and not to men. He well knew that an infallible whole was 
not to be composed of fallible parts ,* and while he thought 
majorities ought to determine many things, that there are 
rights and principles that are superior to even such unani- 
mity as man can manifest, and much more to their majori- 
ties. But Dunning had no selflsh views connected with his 
political notions, wanting no office, and feeling no motive to 
affect that which he neither thought nor wished. He never 
had quitted home, or it is highly probable his views of the 
comparative abuses of the different systems that prevail in 
the world w'ould have been essentially modified. Those he 
saw had unavoidably a democratic source, there being nei- 
ther monarch nor a'ristocrat to produce any other; and, 
under such circumstances, as abuses certainly abound, it is 
not at all surprising that he sometimes a little distorted facts, 
and magnified evils. 

“And my noble, high-spirited, and venerable mother has 
actually gone to the Nest to face the enemy !” exclaimed my 
uncle, after a thoughtful pause. 

^ 6 * 


“ She has, indeed ; and the noble, high-spirited, though 
not venerable, young ladies have gone with her,” returned 
Mr. Dunning, in his caustic way. 

“All three, do you mean?” 

“ Every one of them — Martha, Henrietta, and Anne.” 

“ I am surprised that the last should have done so. Anne 
Marston is such a meek, quiet, peace-loving person, that I 
should think she would have preferred remaining, as she 
naturally might have done, without exciting remark, with 
her own mother.” 

“ She has not, nevertheless. Mrs. Littlepage would brave 
the anti-renters, and the three maidens would be her com- 
panions. I dare say, Ro, you know how it is with the 
gentle sex, when they make up their minds ?” 

“ My girls are all good girls, and have given me very 
little trouble,” answered my uncle, complacently. 

“ Yes, I dare say that may be true. You have only been 
absent from home five years, this trip.” 

“An attentive guardian, notwithstanding, since I left yon 
as a substitute. Has my mother written to you since her 
arrival among the hosts of the Philistines ?” 

“ She has, indeed, Littlepage,” answered Dunning, grave- 
ly ; “I have heard from her three times, for she writes to 
urge my not appearing on the estate. I did intend to pay 
her a visit ; but she tells me that it might lead to a violent 
scene, and can do no good. As the rents will not be due 
until autumn, and Master Hugh is now of age and was to 
be here to look after his own affairs, I have seen no motive 
for incurring the risk of the tarring and feathering. We 
American lawyers, young gentleman, wear no wigs.” 

“ Does my mother write herself, or employ another ?” 
inquired my uncle, with interest. 

“ She honours me with her own hand. Your mother 
writes much better than you do yourself, Roger.” 

“ That is owing to her once having carried chain, as she 
would say herself. Has Martha written to you ?” 

“ Of course. Sweet little Patty and I are bosom friends, 
as you know.” 

“And does she say anything of the Indian and the 
negro ?” 

“ Jaaf and Susquesus ? To be sure she does. Both are 


THE REDSKINS. 67 

living still, and both are well. I saw them myself, and even 
ate of their venison, so lately as last winter.” 

Those old fellows must have each lived a great deal 
more than his century, .lack. They were with my grand- 
father in the old French war, as active, useful men — older, 
then, than my grandfather!” 

“Ay 1 a nigger or a redskin, before all others, for holding 
on to life, when they have been temperate. Let me see — i 

that expedition of Abercrombie’s was about eighty years j 
since,* why, these fellows must be well turned of their hun- j 

dred, though Jaap is rather the oldest, judging from appear- | 

ances.” 

“ I believe no one knows the age of either. A hundred 
each has been thought, now, for many years. Susquesus 
was surprisingly active, too, when I last saw him — like a 
healthy man of eighty.” 

“ He has failed of late, though he actually shot a deer, as 
I told you, last winter. Both the old fellows stray down to ; 
the Nest, Martha writes me ; and the Indian is highly scan- j 
dalized at the miserable imitations of his race that are now i 
abroad. I have even heard that he and Yop have actually i 
contemplated taking the field against them. Seneca New- | 
come is their especial aversion.” \ 

“ How is Opportunity ?” I inquired. “ Does she take any j 
part in this movement'?” ' | 

“A decided one, I hear. She is anti-rent, while she | 

wishes to keep on good terms with her landlord ; and that | 

is endeavouring to serve God and Mammon. She is not | 
the first, however, by a thousand, that wears two faces in j 
this business.” j 

“ Hugh has a deep admiration of Opportunity,” observed | 
my uncle, “ and you had needs be tender in your strictures. j 
The modern Seneca, I take it, is dead against us ?” j 

“ Seneky wishes to go to the legislature, and of course he | 
is on the side of votes. Then his brother is a tenant at the ! 
mill, and naturally wishes to be the landlord. He is also 
interested in the land himself. One thing has struck me in 
this controversy as highly worthy of notice ; and it is the 
naivete with which men reconcile the obvious longings of 
covetousness with what they are pleased to fancy the prin- 
ciples of liberty ! When a man has worked a farm a cer- 


THE REDSKINS 


68 


tain number of years, he boldly sets up the doctrine that the 
fact itself gives him a high moral claim to possess it for 
ever. A moment’s examination will expose the fallacy by 
which these sophists apply the flattering unction to their 
souls. They work their farms under a lease, and in virtue 
of its covenants. Now, in a moral sense, all that time can 
do in such a case, is to render these covenants the more 
sacred, and consequently more binding ; but these worthies, 
whose morality is all on one side, imagine that these time- ; 
honoured covenants give them a right to fly from their own 
conditions during their existence, and to raise pretensions 
far exceeding anything they themselves confer, the moment 
they cease.” 

“ Poh, poh ! Jack ; there is no need of refining at all, to 
come at the merits of such a question. This is a civilized 
country, or it is not. If it be a civilized country, it will 
respect the rights of property, and its own laws ; and if the 
reverse, it will not respect them. As for setting up tlie doc- 
trine, at this late day, when millions and millions are in- 
vested in this particular species of property, that the lease- 
hold tenure is opposed to the spirit of institutions of which 
it has substantially formed a part, ever since those institu- 
tions have , themselves had an existence, it requires a bold 
front, and more capacity than any man at Albany possesses, 
to make the doctrines go down. Men may run off with the 
notion that the tendencies to certain abuses, which mark 
every system, form their spirit; but this is a fallacy that a 
very little thought will correct. Is it true that proposals 
have actually been made, by these pretenders to liberty, to 
appoint commissioners to act as arbitrators between the I 
landlords and tenants, and to decide points that no one has i 
any right to raise ?” ! 

“True as Holy Writ; and a regular ‘Star Chamber’ j 
tribunal it would be! It is wonderful, after all, how ex- j 
tremes do meet I” . I 

“ That is as certain as the return of the sun after night. | 
But let us now talk of our project. Jack, and of the means 
of getting among these self-deluded men — deluded by their I 
own covetousness — without being discovered; for I am j 
determined to see them, and to judge of their motives and 
conduct for myself.” 



THE REDSKINS. 69 

“ Take care of the tar-barrel, and of the pillow-case of 
feathers, Roger !” 

“ I shall endeavour so to do.” 

We then discussed the matter before us at length and 
leisurely. I shall not relate all that was said, as it would 
be going over the same ground twice, but refer the reader 
to the regular narrative. At the usual hour, we retired to 
our beds, retaining the name of Davidson, as convenient 
and prudent. , Next day Mr. John Dunning busied himself 
in our behalf, and made himself exceedingly useful to us. 
In his character of an old bachelor, he had many acquaint- 
ances at the theatre ,* and through his friends of the green- 
room he supplied each of us with a wig. Both my uncle 
and myself spoke German reasonably well, and our original 
plan was to travel in the characters of immigrant trinket 
and essence pedlars. But I had a fancy for a hand-organ 
and a monkey ; and it was finally agreed that Mr. Hugh 
Roger Littlepage, senior, was to undertake this adventure 
with a box of cheap watches and gilded trinkets ; while Mr. 
Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior, was to commence his travels 
at home, Jn the character of a music-grinder. Modesty 
will not permit me to say all I might, in favour of my own 
skill in music in general ; but I sang well for an amateur, 
and played, both on the violin and flute, far better than is 
common. 

Everything was arranged in the course of the following 
day, our wigs of themselves completely effecting all the 
disguises that were necessary. As for my uncle, he was 
nearly bald, and a wig was no great encumbrance; but my 
shaggy locks gave me some trouble. A little clipping, how- 
ever, answered the turn ; and 1 had a hearty laugh at my- 
self, in costume, that afternoon, before Dunning’s dressing- 
room glass. We got round the felony law, about being 
armed and disguised, by carrying no weapons but our tools 
in the way of trade. 



i 


70 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER V. 

M And she hath smiles to earth unknown — 

Smiles, that with motion of their own 
Do spread, and sink, and rise; 

That come and go with endless play. 

And ever, as they pass away. 

Are hidden in her eyes.” 

Wordswouth 

I WAS early in costume the following morning. I ques- 
tion if my own mother could have known me, had she lived 
long enough to see the whiskers sprout on my cheeks, and 
to contemplate my countenance as a man. I went into 
Dunning’s library, drew the little hurdy-gurdy from its 
hiding-place, slung it, and began to play St. Patrick’s Day 
in the Morning, with spirit, and, I trust I may add, with 
execution. I was in the height of the air, when the door 
opened, and Barney thrust his high-cheeked-bone face into 
the room, his mouth as wide open as that of a frozen 
porker. 

“ Where the divil did ye come from?” demanded the new 
footman, with the muscles of that vast aperture of his work- 
ing from grin to grim, and grim to grin again. “ Yee ’s 
wilcome to the tchune ; but how comes ye here ?” 

“ 1 coomes vrom Halle, in Preussen. Vat isht your 
vaterland ?” 

“ Be yees a Jew ?” 

“ Nein — I isht a goot Christian. Vilt you haf Yankee 
Tootle?” 

“Yankee T’under ! Ye’ll wake up the masther, and 
he’ll be displais’d, else ye might work upon t’at tchune till 
the end of time. That I should hear it here, in my own 
iiberary, and ould Ireland t’ree thousand laigues away !” 

A laugh from Dunning interrupted the dialogue, when 
Barney vanished, no doubt anticipating some species of 
American punishment for a presumed delinquency. Whe- 
ther the blundering, well-meaning, honest fellow really 
ascertained who we were that breakfasted with his master, 



THE REDSKINS. 


71 

i [ do not know ; but we got the meal and left the house 
I without seeing his face again, Dunning having a young 
i yellow fellow to do the service of the table. 

I need scarcely say that 1 felt a little awkward at finding 
myself in the streets of New York in such a guise ; but the 
gravity and self-possession of my uncle were a constant i 
source of amusement to me. He actually sold a watch on i 
I the wharf before the boat left it, though I imputed his sue- < 
! cess to the circumstance that his price was what a brother 
I dealer, who happened to be trading in the same neighbour* 
hood, pronounced “ onconscionably low.” We took a 
comfortable state-room between us, under the pretence of 
locking-up our property, and strolled about the boat, gaping 
I and looking curious, as became our class. 

I “ Here are at least a dozen people that I know,” said my 
i uncle, as we were lounging around — loafing around, is the 
j modern Doric — about the time that the boat was paddling 
! past Fort Washington ; “ I have reconnoitred in all quar- 
i lers, and find quite a dozen. I have been conversing with 
' an old school-fellow, and one with whom I have ever lived | 
in tolerable intimacy, for the last ten minutes, and find my 
I broken English and disguise are perfect. I am confident 
I my dear mother herself would not recognise me.” 

“ We can then amuse ourselves with my grandmother 1 
and the young ladies,” I answered, “ when we reach the | 
Nest. For my part, it strikes me that we had better keep i 
our own secret to the last moment.” 

“ Hush ! As I live, there is Seneca Newcome this mo- 
ment ! He is coming this way, and we must be Germans | 
again.” } 

I Sure enough, there was ’Squire Seneky, as the honest j 
farmers around the Nest call him ; though many of them 
must change their practices, or it will shortly become so 
absurd to apply the term “ honest” to them, that no one will 
have the hardihood to use it. Newcome came slowly to- 
! wards the forecastle, on which we were standing ; and my 
uncle determined to get into conversation with Kim, as a 
means of further proving the virtue of our disguises, as well 
as possibly of opening the way to some communications that 
might facilitate our visit to the Nest. ^ With this view, the j 
pretended pedlar drew a watch from his pocket, and, offer- j 


THE REDSKINS. 


72 

ing it meekly to the inspection of the quasi lawyer, lie 
said — 

“ Puy a vatch, shentlemans ?” 

‘‘Hey! what? Oh I a watch,” returned Seneca, in that 
high, condescending, vulgar key, with which the salt of the 
earth usually affect to treat those they evidently think much 
beneath them in intellect, station, or some other great essen- 
tial, at the very moment they are bursting with envy, and 
denouncing as aristocrats all who are above them. “ Hey ! 
a watch, is it? What countryman are you, friend?” 

“A Charmans — ein Teutscher.” 

“A German — ine Tycher is the place you come from, I ' 
s’pose ?” 

“ Nein — ein Teutscher isht a Charman.” 

“ Oh, yes I I understand. How long have you been in 
Ameriky ?” 

“ Twelf moont’s.” 

“ Why, that ’s most long enough to make you citizens. 
Where do you live?” 

“ Nowhere ; I lifs jest asht it happens — soometimes here, 
ant soometimes dere.” 

“Ay, ay I I understand — no legal domicile, but lead a 1 
wandering life. Have you many of these watches for sale ?” | 

“ Yees — I haf asht many as twenty. Dey are as sheep 
as dirt, and go like pig clocks.” 

‘And what may be your price for this?” 

“ Dat you can haf for only eight tollars. Elfery poty ! 
wilt say it is golt, dat doesn’t know petter.” | 

“Oh! it isn’t gold then — I swan!” — what this oath ! 
meant I never exactly knew, though I suppose it to be a I 
puritan mode of saying “ I swear !” the attempts to cheat | 
the devil in this way being very common among their pious I 
descendants, though even “ Smith Thompson” himself cfn ' 
do no man any good in such a case of conscience — “ I 
swan ! you come plaguy near taking even me in ! Will 
you come down from that price any ?” 

“ If you wilt gif me some atfice, perhaps I may. You | 
look like a goot shentlemans, and one dat woultn’t sheat a j 
poor Charmans ,* ant effery poty wants so much to sheat de 
poor Charmans, dat I will take six, if you will drow in some 
atfice.” 


THEREDSKINS. 73 

“Advice? You have come to the right man for that 1 
Walk a litile this way, where we shall be alone. What 'is 
the natur’ of the matter — action on the case, or a tort?” 

“ Nein, nein ! it isht not law dat 1 wants, put atfice.” 

“ Well, but advice leads to law, ninety-nine times in a 
hundred.” # 

“ Ya, ya !” answered the pedlar, laughing; “ dat may be 
so; put it isht not what I vants — I vants to know vere a 
Charman can trafel wit’ his goots in de coontry, and not in 
de pig towns.” 

“ 1 understand you — six dollars, hey ! That sounds high 
for such a looking watch” — he had just before mistaken it 
for gold — “ but I ’m always the poor man’s friend, and de- 
spise aristocracy” — what Seneca hated with the strongest 
hate, he ever fancied he despised the most, and by aristo- 
cracy he merely understood gentlemen and ladies, in the 
true signification of the words — “ why, 1 ’m always ready 
to help along the honest citizen. If you could make up 
your mind, now, to part with this one watch for nawthin’, 
I think I could tell you a part of the country where you 
might sell the other nineteen in a week.” 

“ Goot !” exclaimed my uncle, cheerfully. “ Take him— • 
he ist your broberty, and wilcome. Only show me de town 
where I canst sell de nineteen udders.” 

Had my uncle Ro been a true son of peddling, he would 
have charged a dollar extra on each of the nineteen, and 
made eleven dollars by his present liberality. 

“ It no town at all — only a township,” returned the 
literal Sfeneca. “ Did you expect it would be a city?” 

“ Vat cares I ? I woult radder sell my vatches to goot, 
honest, country men, dan asht to de best burghers in de 
land.”?rf ^ 

“ Yot ’re my man ! The right spirit is in you. I hope 
you ’re no patroon — no aristocrat?” 

4^1 don’t know vat isht badroon, or vat isht arishtocrat.” 

“No! You are a happy man in your ignorance. A 
patroon is a nobj^man who owns another man’s land ; and 
an aristocrat is a body that thinks himself better than his 
neighbours, friend.” 

“ Well, den, I isht no badroon, for I don’t own no land 

VoL. I.— 7 


V,. 


74 theredskins. 

! at all, not even mine own ; and I ishn’t petter asht no poty 
i at ail.” 

I “Yes, you be; you’ve only to think so, and you’ll be 
the jE;reatest gentleman of ’em all.” 

“ Well, den, I will dry and dink so, and be petter asht de 
greatest shentlemans of dem all. But dat won’t do, nudder, 
as dat vilt make me petter dan you ; for you are one of de 
greatest of dem all, shentlemans.” 

“ Oh ! as for me, let me alone. I scorn being on their 
level. I go for ‘ Down with the rent !’ and so ’ll you, too, 
afore you’ve been a week in our part of the country.” 

I “ Vat isht de rent dat you vants to git down ?” 

I “ It ’s a thing that ’s opposed to the spirit of the institu- 

tions, as you can see by my feelin’s at this very moment. 

I But no matter! I’ll keep the watch, if you say so, and 

I show you the way into that part of the country, as your 

pay.” 

i “Agreet, shentlemans. Vat I vants is atfice, and vat you 
j vants is a vatch.” 

I Here uncle Ro laughed so much like himself, when he 
I ought clearly to have laughed in broken English, that I was 
I very much afraid he might give the alarm to our companion ; 

I but he did not. From that time, the best relations existed 
I between us and Seneca, who, in the course of the day, 

I recognised us by sundry smiles and winks, though I could 
j plainly see he did not like the anti-aristocratic principle 
i sufficiently to wish to seem too intimate with us. Before we 
! reached the islands, however, he gave us directions where 

i to meet him in the morning, and we parted, when the boat 

I stopped alongside of the pier at Albany that afternoon, the 
best friends in the world. 

i “Albany! deai:, good old Albany!” exclaimed my uncle 
j Ro, as we stopped on the draw of the bridge to look at the 
busy scene in the basin, where literally hundreds of canal- 
i boats were either lying to discharge or to load, or were 

I coming and going, to say nothing of other craft ; “ dear, 

i good old Albany ! you are a town to wffich I ever return 

with pleasure, for you at least never disappoint me. A 

; first-rate country-place you are; and, though I miss your 
! quaint old Dutch church, and your rustic-looking old Eng- j 

! I 

! - ■ i 


I TII£REDSKINS. 75 

I lish church from the centre of your principal street, almost 
j every change you make is respectable. I know nothing 
; that tells so much against you as changing the name of 
I Market street by the paltry imitation of Broadway ; but, 
j considering that a horde of Yankees have come down upon 
I you since the commencement of the present century, you 
are lucky that the street was not called the Appian Way. 
But, excellent old Albany ! whom even the corruptions of 
politics cannot change in the core, lying against thy hill- 
side, and surrounded with thy picturesque scenery, there is 
an air of respectability about thee that 1 admire, and a quiet 
prosperity that I love. Yet, how changed since my boy- 
j hood ! Thy simple stoups have all vanished ; thy gables 
are disappearing ; marble and granite are rising in thy 
streets, too, but they take honest shapes, and are free from 
the ambition of mounting on stilts ; thy basin has changed 
the whole character of thy once semi-sylvan, semi-commer- 
cial river; but it gives to thy young manhood an appear- 
ance of abundance and thrift that promise well for thy age !” 

The reader may depend on it that I laughed heartily at 
this rhapsody; for I could hardly enter into my uncle’s 
feelings. Albany is certainly a very good sort of a place, and 
relatively a more respectable-looking town than the ^^com- 
mercial emporium,” which, after all, externally, is a mere 
huge expansion of a very marked mediocrity, with the pre- 
tension of a capital in its estimate of itself. But Albany 
I lays no claim to be anything more than a provincial town, 
and in that class it is highly placed. By the way, there is 
nothing in which “ our people,” to speak idiomatically, more 
deceive themselves, than in their estimate of what composes 
a capital. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the repre- 
sentatives of such a government as this could impart to any 
I place the tone, opinions, habits and manners of a capital* 

I for, if they did, they would impart it on the novel principle 

I of communicating that which they do not possess in their 
I own persons. Congress itself, though tolerably free from 
most shackles, including those of the constitution, is not up 
to that. In my opinion, a man accustomed to the world 
might be placed blindfolded ift the most finished quarter of 
New York, and the place has new quarters in which the 
incongruities I have already mentioned do not exist, and, 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


76 

uny life on it, he could pronounce, as soon as the bandage 
was removed, that he was not in a town where the tone of 
a capital exists. The last thing to make a capital is trade. 
Indeed, the man who hears the words “ business” and “ the 
merchants” ringing in his ears, may safely conclude, de 
facto, that he is not in a capital. Now, a New-York village 
is often much less rustic than the villages of the most ad- 
vanced country of Europe; but a New-York town is many 
degrees below any capital of a large State in the old world. 

Will New York ever be a capital 1 Yes — out of all ques- 
tion, yes. But the day will not come until after the sudden 
changes of condition which immediately and so naturally 
succeeded the revolution, have ceased to influence ordinary 
society, and those above again impart to those below more 
than they receive. This restoration to the natural state of 
things must take place, as soon as society gets settled ; and 
there will be nothing to prevent a town living under our 
own institutions — spirit, tendencies and all — from obtaining 
the highest tone that ever yet prevailed in a capital. The 
folly is in anticipating the natural course of events. No- 
thing will more hasten these events, however, than a litera- 
ture that is controlled, not by the lower, but by the higher 
opinion of the country ; which literature is yet, in a great 
degree, to be created. 

I had dispensed with the monkey, after trying to get 
along with the creature for an hour or two, and went around 
only with my music. I would rather manage an army of 
anti-renters than one monkey. With the hurdy-gurdy slung 
around my neck, therefore, I followed my uncle, who actu- 
ally sold another watch before we reached a tavern. Of 
course we did not presume to go to Congress Hall, or the 
Eagle, for we knew we should not be admitted. This was 
the toughest part of our adventures. I am of opinion my j 
uncle made a mistake; for he ventured to a second-class I 
house, under the impression that one of the sort usually I 
frequented by men of our supposed stamp might prove too I 
coarse for us, altogether. I think we should have been I 
better satisfied with the coarse fare of a coarse tavern, thaft ! 
with the shabby-genteel of the house we blundered into. 

In the former, everything would have reminded us, in a way 
we expected to be reminded, that we were out of the com 


THE REDSKINS. 


77 

men track ; and we might have been amused with the 
I change, though it is one singularly hard to be endured. I re- 
I member to have heard a young man, accustomed from child- 
I hood to the better habits of the country, but who went to sea a i 
; lad, before the mast, declare that the coarseness of his ship- 
i mates, and there is no vulgarity'- about a true sailor, even 

j when coarsest, gave him more trouble to overcome, than all 

I the gales, physical sufferings, labour, exposures and dun- 
j gers, put together. I must confess, I have found it so, too, 
in my little experience. While acting as a strolling musi- 
i cian, I could get along with anything better than the coarse 
' habits which I encountered at the table. Yoitr silver-fork- 
I isms, and your purely conventional customs, as a matter of 
I course, no man of the w'orld attaches any serious import- 
I ance to ; but there are conventionalities that belong to the 
fundamental principles of civilized society, which become 
second nature, and with which it gets to be hard, indeed, to 
i dispense. I shall say as little as possible of the disagree- 
ables of my new trade, therefore, but slick to the essentials. 

The morning of the day which succeeded that of our 
I arrival at Albany, my uncle Ro and I took our seats in the 
train, intending to go to Saratoga, via Troy. I wonder the 
Trojan who first thought of playing this travestie on Homer, 

, did not think of calling the place Troyville, or Troybo- 
: rough ! That would have been semi-American, at least, 

i whereas the present anpellation is so purely classical 1 It 
is impossible to walk tnrough the streets of this neat and 
flourishing town, which already counts its twenty thousand 
souls, and not have the images of Achilles, and Hector, and 
Priam, and Hecuba, pressing on the imagination a little 
uncomfortabl}^ Had the place been called Try, the name 
would have been a sensible one ; for it is trying all it can 
to get the better of Albany ; and, much as I love the latter 
venerable old town, I hope Troy may succeed in its trying 
to prevent the Hudson from being bridged. By the way, I 
will here remark, for the benefit of those who have never 
Been any country but their own, that there is a view on the 
j road between Schenectady and this Grecian place, just 
i *where the heights give the first full appearance of the valley 
of the Hudson, including glimpses of Waterford, Lansing- 
burg and Albany, with a full view of both Troys, which 
7 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


78 

gives one a better idea of the affluence of European scenery, 
than almost any other spot I can recall in America. To my 
hurdy-gurdy : 

I made my first essay as a musician in public beneath the 
vvindows of the principal inn of Troy. 1 cannot say much 
in favour of the instrument, though I trust the playing itself 
was somewhat respectable. This I know full well, that I 
soon brought a dozen fair faces to the windows of the inn, 
and that each was decorated with a smile. Then it was 
that I regretted the monkey. Such an opening could not 
but awaken the dormant ambition of even a “ patriot” of 
the purest water, and I will own I was gratified. 

Among the curious who thus appeared, were v’wo whom 
I at once supposed to be father and daughter. The former 
was a clergyman, and, as I fancied by something in his air, 
of “ the Church,” begging pardon of those who take offence 
at this exclusive title, and to whom 1 will just give a hint in 
passing. Any one at all acquainted with mankind, will at 
once understand that no man who is certain of possessing 
any particular advantage, ever manifests much sensibility 
because another lays claim to it also. In the constant 
struggles of the jealous, for instance, on the subject of that 
universal source of jealous feeling, social position, the man 
or woman who is conscious of claims never troubles him- 
self or herself about them. For them the obvious fact is 
sufficient. If it be answ'ered to this that the pretension of 
“/Ae Church” is exclusive, I shall admit it is, and “con- 
clusive,” too. It is not exclusive, however, in the sense 
urged, since no one denies that there are many branches to 
“ the Church,” although those branches do not embrace 
everything. I would advise those who take offence at “ our” 
styling “ourselves” “ the Church,” to style themselves “/Ae 
Church,” just as they call all their parsons bishops, and see 
who will care about Jt. That is a touchstone which wilf* 
soon separate the true metal from the alloy. 

My parson, I could easily see, was a Church clergyman 
— not a meeting -\\o\y^Q clergyman. How I ascertained that 
fact at a glance, I shall not reveal ; but I also saw in his 
countenance some of that curiosity which marks simplicity 
of character : it was not a vulgar feeling, but one which 
induced him to beckon me to approach a little nearer. I did 


THE REDSKINS. 


79 


j 

i SO, when he invited me in. It was a little awkward, at 
j first, I must acknowledge, to be beckoned about in this 
! manner; but there was something in the air and counte- 
nance of the daughter that induced me not to hesitate abont 

j complying. I cannot say that her beauty was so very strik- 
I ing, though she was decidedly pretty ; but the expression 
! of her face, eyes, smile, and all put together, was so singu- 
! larly sweet and feminine, that I felt impelled by a sympathy 
} I shall not attempt to explain, to enter the house, and ascend 

I to the door of a parlour that I saw at once was public, 

I though it then contained no one but my proper hosts. 

I “ VValk in, young man,” said the father, in a benevolent 
tone of voice. “ I am curious to see that instrument ; and 
my daughter here, who has a taste for music, wishes it as 
much as I do myself. What do you call it?” 

“ Hurty-gurty,” I answered. 

“ From what part of the world do you come, my young 
i friend?” continued the clergyman, raising his meek eyes to 
i mine still more curiously. 

I “Vrom Charmany ; vrom Preussen, vere did reign so 
I late de good Koenig Wilhelm.” 

“ What does he say, Molly ?” 

So the pretty creature bore the name of Mary! I liked 
the Molly, too ; it was a good sign, as none but the truly 
respectable dare use such familiar appellations in these 
ambitious times. Molly sounded as if these people had the 
I aplomb of position and conscious breeding. Had they been 
vulgar, it would have been Mollissa. 

“ It is not difficult to translate, father,” answered one of 
the sweetest voices that had ever poured its melody on my 
ear, and which was rendered still more musical by the slight 
laugh that mingled with it. “ He says he is from Germany 
— from Prussia, where the good King William lately 
reigned.” 

I liked the “ father,” too — that sounded refreshing, after 
passing a night among a tribe of foul-nosed adventurers in 
! humanity, every one of whom had done his or her share 
! towards caricaturing the once pretty appellatives of “ Pu” 
and “ Ma.” A young lady may still say “ Papa,” or 
even “Mamma,” though it were far better that she said 


THE REDSKINS. 


80 

“ Father” and “ Mother but as for “ Pa” and “ Ma,” they | 

are now done with in respectable life. They will not even j 

do for the nursery. I 

“And this instrument is a hurdy-gurdy ?” continued the | 

clergyman. “ What have we here — the name spelt on it ?” i 

“ Dat isht de maker’s name — Hochstiel fecit ” | 

“ Fecit !” repeated the clergyman ; “ is that German ?” j 
“ Neua — dat isht Latin ; facio, feci, factum, facere— j 
feci,feciste, fecit. It means make, I suppose you know. | 
The parson looked at me, and at my dress and figure, ! 
with open surprise, and smiled -as his eye glanced at his i 
daughter. If asked why I made this silly display of lower- i 
form learning, I can only say that I chafed at being fancied j 
a mere every-day street musician, that had left his monkey j 
at home, by the charming girl who stood gracefully bending ! 
over her father’s elbow, as the latter examined the inscrip- i 
tion that was stamped on a small piece of ivory which had | 
been let into the instrument. I could see that Mary shrunk I 
back a little under the sensitive feeling, so natural to her 
sex, that she was manifesting too much freedom of manner I 
for the presence of a youth who was nearer to her own class j 
than she could have supposed it possible for a player on the j 
hurdy-gurdy to be. A blush succeeded ; but the glance of j 
the soft blue eye that instantly followed, seemed to set all at | 
rest, and she leaned over her father’s elbow again. | 

“ You understand Latin, then ?” demanded the parent, i 
examining me over his spectacles from head to foot. ! 

“A leetle, sir — ^just a ierry leetle. In my coontry, efery | 
mans isht obliget to be a soldier some time, and them t’at 
knows Latin can be made sergeants and corporals.” 

“ That is Prussia, is it?” 

“ Ya — Preussen, vere so late did reign de goot Koenig 
Wilhelm.” 

“And is Latin much understood among you? I have 
heard that, in Hungary, most well-informed persons even 
speak the tongue.” 

“ In Charmany it isht not so. We all I’arnts somet’ing, | 
but not all dost I’arn efery t’ing.” ' 

I could see a smile struggling around the sweet lips of , 
that dear girl, after I had thus delivered myself, as I fancied, ! 


THE REDSKINS. 81 

with a most accurate inaccuracy ; but she succeeded in 
repressing it, though those provoking eyes of hers continued 
to laugh, much of the time our interview lasted. 

“ Oh ! I very well know that in Prussia the schools are 
quite good, and that your government pays great attention 
to the wants of all classes,” rejoined the clergyman ; “ but 
I confess some surprise that you should understand anything 
of Latin. Now, even in this country, where we boast so 
much ” 

“ Ye-e-s,” I could not refrain from drawling out, “ dey 
does poast a great teal in dis country !” 

Mary actually laughed ; whether it was at my words, or 
at the somewhat comical manner I had assumed — a manner 
in which simplicity was tant soil peu blended with irony — 
I shall not pretend to say. As for the father, his simplicity 
was of proof; and, after civilly waiting until my interrup- 
tion was done, he resumed what he had been on the point 
of saying. 

“I was about to add,” continued the clergyman, “that 
even in this country, where we boast so much” — the little 
minx of a daughter passed her hand over her eyes, and 
fairly coloured with the effort she made not to laugh again 
— “ of the common schools, and of their influence on the 
public mind, it is not usual to find persons of your condition 
who understand the dead languages.” 

“ Ye-e-s,” I replied ; “ it isht my condition dat misleats 
you, sir. Mine fat’er wast a shentlemans, and he gifet me 
as goot an etication as de Koenig did gif to de Kron Prinz.” 

Here, my desire to appear well in the eyes of Mary 
caused me to run into another silly indiscretion. How I 
was to explain the circumstance of the son of a Prussian 
gentleman, whose father had given him an education as 
good as that which the King of his country had given to 
its Crown Prince, being in the streets of Troy, playing on 
a hurdy-gurdy, was a difficulty I did not reflect on for a 
moment. The idea of being thought by that sweet girl a 
mere uneducated boor, was intolerable to me; and I threw 
it off by this desperate falsehood — false in its accessories, 
but true in its main facts — as one would resent an insult. 
Fortune favoured me, however, far more than I had any 
right to expect. 


THE REDSKINS. 


82 

There is a singular disposition in the American character 
to believe every well-mannered European at least a count, 
I do not mean that those who have seen the world are not 
like other persons in this respect ; but a very great propor- 
tion of the country never has seen any other world than a 
world of “business.” The credulity on this subject sur- 
passeth belief; and, were I to relate facts of this nature that 
might be established in a court of justice, the very parties 
connected with them would be ready to swear that .they are 
caricatures. Now, well-mannered I trust I am, and, though 
plainly dressed and thoroughly disguised, neither my air 
nor attire was absolutely mean. As my clothes were new, 
I was neat in my appearance ; and there were possibly 
some incongruities about the last, that might have struck 
eyes more penetrating than those of my companions. I 
could see that both father and daughter felt a lively interest 
in me, the instant I gave them reason to believe I was one 
of better fortunes. So many crude notions exist among us 
on the subject of convulsions and revolutions in Europe, that 
I dare say, had I told any improbable tale of the political 
condition of Prussia, it would have gone down ; for nothing 
so much resembles the ignorance that prevails in America^ 
generally, concerning the true state of things in Europe, as 
the ignorance that prevails in Europe, generally, concerning 
the true state of things in America. As for Mary, her soft 
eyes seemed to me to be imbued with thrice their customary 
gentleness and compassion, as she recoiled a step in native 
modesty, and gazed at me, when I had made my reve- 
lation. 

“ If such is the case, my young friend,” returned the cler- 
gyman, with benevolent interest, “ you ought, and might 
easily be placed in a better position than this you are now 
in. Have you any knowledge of Greek?” 

“ Certainly — Greekjs moch study in Charmany.” 

‘ In for a penny, in for a pound,’ I thought. 

“And the modern languages — do you understand any of 
them ?” 

“ I speaks de five great tongues of Europe, more ast less 
well ; and I read dem all, easily.” 

“ The/ue tongues !” said the clergyman, counting on hii 
fingers ,* “ what can they be, Mary ?” 


^ THER2USKINS. 83 

“French, and German, and Spanish, and Italian, I sup- 
pose, sir.” 

“ These make but four. What can be the fifth, my 
dear?” 

“ De yoong laty forgets de Englisch. De Englisch is 
das funf.” 

“ Oh ! yes, the English !” exclaimed the pretty creature, 
pressing her lips together to prevent laughing in rny face. 

“True — I had forgotten the English, not being accus- 
tomed to think of it as a mere European tongue. I sup- 
pose, young man, you naturally speak the English less 
fluently than any other of your five languages ?” 

“ Ya !’ 

Again the smile struggled to the lips of Mary. 

“ I feel a deep interest in you as a stranger, and am sorry 
we have only met to part so soon. Which way shall you 
be likely to direct your steps, my Prussian young friend?” 

“ I go to a place -which is callet Ravensnest — goot place 
to sell vatch, dey tells me.” 

“ Ravensnest !” exclaimed the father. 

“ Ravensnest !” repeated the daughter, and that in tones 
which put the hurdy-gurdy to shame. 

“ VVhy, Ravensnest is the place where I live, and the 
parish of which I am the clergyman — the Protestant Epis- 
copal clergyman, I mean.” 

This, then, was the Rev. Mr. Warren, the divine who 
had been called to our church the very summer I left home, 
and who had been there ever since ! My sister Martha had 
written me much concerning these people, and I felt as if I 
had known them for years. Mr. Warren was a man of 
good connexions, and some education, but of no fortune 
whatever, who had gone into^Ae Church — it was the church 
of his ancestors, one of whom had actually been an English 
bishop, a century or two ago — from choice, and contrary to 
the wishes of his friends. As a preacher, his success had 
never been great ; but for the discharge of his duties no 
man stood higher, and no man was more respected. The 
living of St. Andrew’s, Ravensnest, would have been poor 
enough, had it depended on the contributions of the parish- 
ioners. These last gave about one hundred and fifty dollars 
R-year, for their share of the support of a priest. I gave 


THE REDSKINS. 


84 

another hundred, as regularly as clock-work, and had been 
made to do so throughout a long minority ; and my grand- 
mother and sister made up another fifty between them. 
But there was a glebe of fifty acres of capital land, a wood- 
lot, and a fund of two thousand dollars at interest ; the 
whole proceeding from endowments made by my grandfa- 
ther, during his lifetime. Altogether, the living may have 
been worth a clear five hundred dollars a-year, in addition 
to a comfortable house, hay, wood, vegetables, pasture, and 
some advantages in the way of small crops. Few country 
clergymen were better off than the rector of St. Andrew’s, 
Ravensnest, and all as a consequence of the feudal and 
aristocratic habits of the Littlepages, though I say it, per- 
haps, who might better not, in times like these. 

My letters had told me that the Rev. Mr. Warren was a 
widower; that Mary was his only child; that he was a 
truly pious, not a sAam-pious, and a really zealous clergy- 
man ; a man of purest truth, whose word was gospel — of 
great simplicity and integrity of mind and character ; that 
he never spoke evil of others, and that a complaint of this 
world and its hardships seldom crossed his lips. He loved 
his fellow-creatures, both naturally and on principle; 
mourned over the state of the diocese, and greatly pre- 
ferred piety even to high-churchism. High-churchman he 
was, nevertheless ; though it was not a high-churchmanship 
that outweighed the loftier considerations of his Christian 
duties, and left him equally without opinions of his own in 
matters of morals, and without a proper respect, in practice, 
for those that he had solemnly vowed to maintain. 

His daughter was described as a sweet-tempered, arch, 
modest, sensible, and well-bred girl, that had received a far 
better education than her father’s means would have per- 
mitted him to bestow, through the liberality and affection 
of a widowed sister of her mother’s, who was affluent, and 
had caused her to attend the same school as that to which 
she had sent her own daughters. In a word, she was a 
most charming neighbour ; and her presence at Ravensnest 
had rendered Martha’s annual visits to the “ old house” 
(built in 1785) not only less irksome, but actually pleasant. 
Such had been my sister’s account of the Warrens and 
their qualities, throughout a correspondence of five years. 


THE REDSKINS. 


85 

I have even fancied that she loved this Mary Warren better 
than she loved any of her uncle’s wards, herself of course 
excepted. 

The foregoing flashed through my mind, the instant the 
clergyman announced himself; but the coincidence of our 
being on the way to the same part of the country, seemed 
to strike him as forcibly as it did myself. What Mary 
thought of the matter, I had no means of ascertaining. 

“This is singular enough,” resumed Mr.Warren. “ What 
has directed your steps towards Ravensnest ?” 

“ Dey tell mine ooncle ’tis goot place tc sell moch vatch.” 

“ You have an uncle, then ? Ah ! I see him there in the 
street, showing a watch at this moment to a gentleman. Is 
your uncle a linguist, too, and has he been as well educated 
as you seem to be yourself?” 

“ Certain — he moch more of a shentleman dan ast de 
shentleman to whom he now sell vatch.” 

“ These must be the very persons,” put in Mary, a little 
eagerly, “ of whom Mr. Nevvcome spoke, as the” — the dear 
girl did not like to say pedlars, after what I had told them 
of my origin ; so she added — “ dealers in watches and 
trinkets, who intended to visit our part of the country.” 

“You are right, my dear, and the whole matter is now 
clear. Mr. Newcome said he expected them to join us at 
Troy, when we should proceed in the train together as far 
as Saratoga. But here comes Opportunity herself, and her 
brother cannot be far off.” 

At that moment, sure enough, my old acquaintance. Op- 
portunity Newcome, came into the room, a public parlour, 
with an air of great self-satisfaction, and a nonchalance of 
manner that was not a little more peculiar to herself than it 
is to most of her caste. I trembled for my disguise, since, 
to be quite frank on a very delicate subject. Opportunity had 
made so very dead a set at me — “ setting a cap” is but a 
pitiful phrase to express the assault I had to withstand — as 
scarcely to leave a hope that her feminine instinct, increased 
and stimulated with the wish to be mistress of the Nest 
house, could possibly overlook the thousand and one per- 
sonal peculiarities that must still remain about one, whoso 
personal peculiarities she had made her particular study. 
VoL. I.— 8 


86 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER VI. 


“ O, sic a geek she gave her head, 

And sic a toss she gave her feather ; 

Man, saw ye ne’er a bonnier lass 
Before, among the blooming heather'?” 

Allan Cunningham, 


“Ah ! here are some charming French vignettes /” cried 
Opportunity, running up to a table where lay some inferior 
coloured engravings, that were intended to represent the 
cardinal virtues, under the forms of tawdry female beauties. 
The workmanship was French, as were the inscriptions. 
Now, Opportunity knew just enough French to translate 
these inscriptions, simple and school-girl as they were, as 
wrong as they could possibly be translated, under the cir- 
cumstances. 

“ La Vertue,'^ cried Opportunity, in a high, decided way, 
as if to make sure of an audience, “ The Virtue ; La Soli- 
tude'' pronouncing the last word in a desperately English 
accent, “ The Solitude; La Charite, The Charity. It is 
really delightful, Mary, as ‘ Sarah Soothings’ would say, to 
meet with these glimmerings of taste in this wilderness of 
the world.” 

I wondered who the deuce “ Sarah Soothings” could be, 
but afterwards learned this was the nom-de-guerre of a 
female contributor to the magazines, who, I dare say, silly 
as she might be, was never silly enough to record the sen- 
timents Opportunity had just professed to repeat. As for 
The la Charite, and The la Vertue, they did not in the 
least surprise me ; for Martha, the hussy, often made her- 
self merry by recording that young lady’s tours deforce in 
French. On one occasion I remember she wrote me, that 
when Opportunity wished to say On est venu me chercher, 
instead of saying “I am come for,” in homely English, 
which would have been the best of all, she had flown off in 
the high flight of “ Je suis venue pour.” 

Mary smiled, for she comprehended perfectly the difler. 


THE REDSKIN S. 


87 

ence between la Solitude and the Solitude ; but she said 
nothing. I must acknowledge that I was so indiscreet as to 
smile also, though, Opportunity’s back being turned towards 
us, these mutual signs of intelligence that escaped us both 
through the eyes, opened a species of communication that, 
to me at least, was infinitely agreeable. 

Opportunity, having shown the owner of the strange 
figure at which she had just glanced on entering the* room, 
that she had studied French, now turned to take a better 
look at him. I have reason to think my appearance did not 
make a very happy impression on her ; for she tossed her 
head, drew a chair, seated herself in the manner most op- 
posed to the descent of down, and opened her budget of news, 
without the least regard to my presence, and apparently 
with as little attention to the wishes and tastes of her com- 
panions. Her accent, and jumping, hitching mode of speak- 
ing, with the high key in which she uttered her sentiments, 
too, all grated on my ears, which had become a little accus- 
tomed to diflferent habits, in young ladies in particular, in 
the other hemisphere. confess myself to be one of those 
who regard an even, quiet, graceful mode of utterance, as 
even a greater charm in a woman than beauty^ Its effect 
is more lasting, and seems to be directly connected with the 
character. Mary Warren not only pronounced like one 
accustomed to good society ; but the modulations of her 
voice, which was singularly sweet by nature, were even and 
agreeable, as is usual with well-bred women, and as far as 
possible from the jerking, fluttering, now rapid, now drawl- 
ing manner of Opportunity. Perhaps, in this age of “ loose 
attire,” loose habits, and free and easy deportment, the 
speech denotes the gentleman, or the lady, more accurately 
than any other off-hand test. 

“ Sen is enough to wear out anybody’s patience !” ex- 
claimed Opportunity. “ We must quit Troy in half an 
hour; and I have visits that I ought to pay to Miss Jones, 
and Miss White, and Miss Black, and Miss Green, and Miss 
Brown, and three or four others ,* and I can’t get him to 
come near me.” 

“ Why not go alone?” asked Mary, quietly. “It is but 
a step to two or three of the houses, and you cannot possi- 
bly lose your way. I will go with ycu, if you desire it.” 


88 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ Oh ! lose my way ? no, indeed ! I know it too well for 
that. I wasn’t educated in Troy, not to know something ot 
the streets. But it looks so, to see a young lady walking 
in the streets without a beau ! I never wish to cross a room 
in company without a beau ; much less to cross a street. 
No; if Sen don’t come in soon, I shall miss seeing every 
one of my friends, and that will be a desperate disappoint- 
ment to us all ; but it can’t be helped : walk without a beau 
I will noty if I never see one of them again.” 

“ Will you accept of me. Miss Opportunity?” asked Mr. 
Warren. “It will afford me pleasure to be of service to 
you.” 

“ Lord ! Mr. Warren, you don’t think of setting up for a 
beau at your time of life, do you? Everybody would see 
that you ’re a clergyman, and 1 might just as well go alone. 
No, if Sen don’t come in at once, I must lose my visits ; 
and the young ladies will be so put out about it, I know ! 
Ararninta Maria wrote me, in the most particular manner, 
never to go through Troy without stopping to see her, if I 
didn’t see another mortal ; and Katheri/ie Clotilda has as 
much as said she would never forgive me if I passed her 
door. But Seneca cares no more for the friendships of 
young ladies, than he does” — Miss Newcome pronounced 
this word “ doos,” notwithstanding her education, as she did 
“ been,” “ ben,” and fifty others just as much out of the 
common way — “ But Seneca cares no more for the friend- 
ships of young ladies, than he does for the young patroon. 
I declare, Mr. Warren, I believe Sen will go crazy unless 
the anti-renters soon get the best of it ; he does nothing but 
think and talk of ‘ rents,’ and ‘ aristocracy,’ and ‘ poodle 
usages,’ from morning till night.” 

We all smiled at the little mistake of Miss Opportunity, 
but it was of no great consequence; and I dare say she 
knew what she meant as well as most others who use the 
same term, though they spell it more accurately. “ Poodle 
usages” are quite as applicable to anything now existing in 
America, as “ feudal usages.” 

“ Your brother is then occupied with a matter of the last 
importance to the community of which he is a member,” 
answered the clergyman, gravely. “ On the termination of 
this anti- rent question hangs, in my judgment, a vast amount 


TIIEREDSKINS. 89 

of the fjtuie character, and much of the future destiny, of 
New York.” 

“ i wonder, now ! I ’m surprised to hear you say this 
I Mr. Warren, for generally you’re thought to be unfriendly 
. to the movement. Sen says, how'ever, that everything looks 
well, and that he believes the tenants will get their lands 
throughout the State before they ’ve done with it. He tells 
me we shall have Injins enough this summer at Ravensnest. 
The visit of old Mrs. Littlepage has raised a spirit that will 
not easily be put down, he says.” 

“And why should the visit of Mrs. Littlepage to the house 
of her grandson, and to the house built by her own hus- 
band, and in which she passed the happiest days of her life, 
‘ raise a spirit,’ as you call it, in any one in that part of the 
country ?” 

“ Oh ! you ’re episcopal, Mr. Warren ; and we all know 
how the Episcopals feel about such matters. But, for my 
part, I don’t think the Littlepages are a bit better than the 
Newcomes, though I won’t liken them to some I could name 
at Ravensnest ; but I don’t think they are any better than 
you, yourself ; and why should they ask so much more of 
the law than other folks?” 

“ I am not aware that they do ask more of the law than 
ethers ; and, if they do, I ’m sure they obtain less. The 
law in this country is virtually administered by jurors, who 
take good care to graduate justice, so far as they can, by a 
scale suited to their own opinions, and, quite often, to their 
prejudices. As the last are so universally opposed to per- 
sons in Mrs. Littlepage’s class in life, if there be a chance 
to make her suffer, it is pretty certain it will be improved.” 

“ Sen says he can’t see why he should pay rent to a 
Littlepage, any more than a Littlepage should pay rent to 
him.” 

“ I am sorry to hear it, since there is a very sufficient 
reason for the former, and no reason at all for the latter. 
Your brother uses the land of Mr. Littlepage, and that is a 
reason why he should pay him rent. If the case were 
reversed, then, indeed, Mr. Littlepage should pay rent to 
your brother.” 

“ But what reason is there that these Littlepages should 
go on from father to son, from generation to generation, as 
8 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


90 

our landlords, when we ’re just as good as they. It ’s time 
,, there was some change. Besides, only think, we’ve been 
at the mills, now, hard upon eighty years, grandpa having 
first settled there ; and we have had them very mills, now, 
for three generations among us.” 

“ High time, therefore. Opportunity, that there should be 
some change,” put in Mary, with a demure smile. 

“ Oh I you ’re so intimate with Marthy Littlepage, I ’m 
not surprised at anything you think or say. But reason is 
reason, for all that. I haven’t the least grudge in the world 
against young Hugh Littlepage; if foreign lands haven’t 
spoilt him, as they say they ’re desperate apt to do, he’s an 
agreeable young gentleman, and I can’t say that he used to 
think himself any better than other folks.” 

“ I should say none of the family are justly liable to the 
charge of so doing,” returned Mary. 

“ Well, I ’m amazed to hear you say that^ Mary Warren. 
To my taste, Marthy Littlepage is as disagreeable as she 
can be. If the anti-rent cause had nobody better than she 
is to oppose it, it would soon triumph.” 

“ May I ask. Miss Newcome, what particular reason you 
have for so thinking?” asked Mr. Warren, who had kept his 
eye on the young lady the whole time she had been thus 
running on, with an interest that struck me as somewhat 
exaggerated, when one remembered the character of the 
speaker, and the value of her remarks. 

“ I think so, Mr. Warren, because everybody says so,” 
was the answer. “ If Marthy Littlepage don’t think herself 
better than other folks, why don’t she act like other folks. 
Nothing is good enough for her in her own conceit.” 

Poor little Patt, who was the very heau ideal of nature 
and simplicity, as nature and simplicity manifest themselves 
under the influence of refinement and good-breeding, was 
here accused of fancying herself better than this ambitious 
young lady, for no other reason than the fact of the little 
distinctive peculiarities of her air and deportment, which 
Opportunity had found utterly unattainable, after one or two 
1 efforts to compass them. In this very fact is the secret 
of a thousand of the absurdities and vices that are going up 
and down the land at this moment, like raging lions, seeking 
whom they may devour. Men often turn to their statute^ 


THE REDSKINS 


91 

books and constitution to find the sources of obvious evils, 
that, in truth, have their origin in some of the lowest pas- 
sions of human nature. The entrance of Seneca at that 
moment, however, gave a new turn to the discourse, though 
it continued substantially the same. I remarked that Seneca 
entered with his hat on, and that he kept his head covered 
during most of the interview that succeeded, notwithstand- 
ing the presence of the two young ladies and the divine. 
As for myself, I had been so free as to remove my cap, 
though many might suppose it was giving myself airs, while 
others would have imagined it was manifesting a degree of 
respect to human beings that was altogether unworthy of 
freemen. It is getting to be a thing so particular and aris- 
tocratic to take off the hat on entering a house, that few of 
the humbler democrats of America now ever think of it ! 

As a matter of course. Opportunity upbraided her delin- 
quent brother for not appearing sooner to act as her beau ; 
after which, she permitted him to say a word for himself. 
That Seneca was in high good-humour, was easily enough 
to be seen ; he even rubbed his hands together in the excess 
of his delight. 

“ Something has happened to please Sen,” cried the sis- 
ter, her own mouth on a broad grin, in her expectation of 
coming in for a share of the gratification. “ I wish you 
would get him to tell us what it is, Mary ; he ’ll tell i/ou 
anything.” 

I cannot describe how harshly this remark grated on my 
nerves. The thought that Mary Warren could consent to 
exercise even the most distant influence over such a man as 
Seneca Newcome, was to the last degree unpleasant to me , 
and I could have wished that she would openly and indig- 
nantly repel the notion. But Mary Warren treated the 
whole matter very much as a person who was accustomed 
to such remarks would be apt to do. I cannot say that she 
manifested either pleasure or displeasure; but a cold indif- 
ference was, if anything, uppermost in her manner. Pos- 
sibly, I should have been content with this ; but I found it 
very difficult to be so. Seneca, however, did not wait for 
Miss Warren to exert her influence to induce him to talk, 
but appeared well enough disposed to do it of his own 
lic.cord. 


► 


92 the REDSKINS. 

“ Something has happened to please me, I must own,” ha 
i\ answered; “ and I would as lief Mr. Warren should know 
what it is, as not. Things go ahead finely among us anti- 
renters, and we shall carry all our p’ints before long !” 

“ I wish I were certain no points would be carried but | 
those that ought to be carried, Mr. Newcome,” was the j 
answer. “But what has happened, lately, to give a new | 
aspect to the affair i 

“We’re gaining strength among the politicians. Both ! 
sides are beginning to court us, and the ‘spirit of the insti- 
tutions’ will shortly make themselves respected,” 

“ I am delighted to hear that ! It is in the intention of 
the institutions to repress covetousness, and uncharitable- 
ness, and all frauds, and to do nothing but what is right,” 
observed Mr. Warren. 

“Ah ! here comes my friend the travelling jeweller,” said 
Seneca, interrupting the clergyman, in order to salute my 
uncle, who at that instant show'ed himself in the door of the 
room, cap in hand. “ Walk in, Mr. Dafidson, since that is 
your name: Rev. Mr. Warren — Miss Mary Warren — Miss 
Opportunity Newcome, my sister, who wfill be glad to look 
at your wares. The cars will be detained on some special 
business, and we have plenty of time before us.” 

All this was done with a coolness and indifference of ; 
manner which went to show that Seneca had no scruples i 
whatever on the subject of whom he introduced to any one. 

As for my uncle, accustomed to these free and easy man- 
ners, and probably not absolutely conscious of the figure he 
cut in his disguise, he bowed rather too much like a gentle- 
man for one of his present calling, though my previous 
explanation of our own connexion and fallen fortunes had 
luckily prepared the way for this deportment. 

“ Come in, Mr. Dafidson, and open your box — my sister 
may fancy some of your trinkets ; I never knew a girl that 
didn’t.” 

The imaginary pedlar entered, and placed his box on a 
table near which I was standing, the whole party imme- 
diately gathering around it. My presence had attracted no 
particular attention from either Seneca or his sister, the 
room being public, and my connexion with the vender of 
trinkets known. In the mean time, Seneca was too full of ! 


THEREDSKINS 93 

his good news to let the subject drop ; while the watches, 
rings, chains, brooches, bracelets, &;c. &c., were passed 
under examination. 

“Yes, Mr. Warren, I trust we are about to have a com- 
plete development of the spirit of our institutions, and that 
in futur’ there will be no privileged classes in New York, at 
least.” 

“ The last will certainly be a great gain, sir,” the divine 
coldly answered. “ Hitherto, those who have most sup- 
pressed the truth, and who have most contributed to the cir- 
culation of flattering falsehoods, have had undue advantages 
in America.” 

Seneca, obviously enough, did not like this sentiment ; 
but I thought, by his manner, that he was somewhat accus- 
tomed to meeting with such rebuffs from Mr. Warren. 

“ I suppose you will admit there are privileged classes 
now among us, Mr. Warren ?” 

“ I am ready enough to allow that, sir ; it is too plain to 
be denied.” 

“ Wa-all, I should like to hear you p’int ’em out; that I 
might see if we agree in our sentiments.” 

“ Demagogues are a highly privileged class. The editors 
of newspapers are another highly privileged class ; doing 
things, daily and hourly, which set all law and justice at 
defiance, and invading, with perfect impunity, the most pre- 
cious rights of their fellow-citizens. The power of both is 
enormous ; and, as in all cases of great and irresponsible 
power, both enormously abuse it.” 

“ Wa-all, that’s not my way of thinking at all. In my 
judgment, the privileged classes in this country are your 
patroons and your landlords; men that’s not satisfied with 
a reasonable quantity of land, but who wish to hold more 
than the rest of their fellow-creatur’s.” 

“ I am not aware of a single privilege that any patroon — 
of whom, by the way, there no longer exists one, except in 
name — or any landlord, possesses over any one of his fel- 
low-citizens.” 

“ Do you call it no privilege for a man to hold all the 
land there may happen to be in a township? I call that a 
great privilege ; and such as no man should have in a free 
country. Other people want land as well as your Van 


THE REDSKINS. 


94 > 

Renssalaers and Littlepages ; and other people mean tc 
have it, too.” 

“ On that principle, every man who. owns more of any 
one thing than his neighbour is privileged. Even I, poof 
as I am, and am believed to be, am privileged over you, Mr. 
Newcome. I own a cassock, and have two gowns, one old 
and one new, and various other things of the sort, of which 
you have not one. What is more, I am privileged in ano- 
ther sense ; since I can wear my cassock and gown, and 
bands, and do wear them often ; whereas you cannot wear 
one of them all without making yourself laughed at.” 

“ Oh ! but them are not privileges I care anything about ; 
if I did I would put on the things, as the law does not pro- 
hibit it.” 

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Newcome; the law does pro- 
hibit you from wearing 7ny cassock and gown contrary to 
rhy wishes.” 

“ Wa-all, wa-all, Mr. Warren; we never shall quarrel 
about that; I don’t desire to wear your cassack and gown.” 

“ I understand you, then ; it is only the things that you 
desire to use that you deem it a privilege for the law to leave 
me.” 

“I am afraid we shall never agree, Mr. Warren, about 
this anti-rent business; and I’m very sorry for it, as I 
wish particularly to think as you do,” glancing his eye 
most profanely towards Mary as he spoke. “ I am for the 
movement-principle, while you are too much for the stand- 
still doctrine.” 

“ I am certainly for remaining stationary, Mr. Newcome, 
if progress mean taking away the property of old and long 
established families in the country, to give it to those whose 
names are not to be found in our history ; or, indeed, to give 
it to any but those to whom it rightfully belongs.” 

“We shall never agree, my dear sir, we shall never 
agree ;” then, turning towards my uncle with the air of su- 
periority that the vulgar so easily assume — “ What do you 
say to all this, friend Dafidson — are you up-rent or down- 
rent!” 

“ Ja, mynheer,” was the quiet answer ;” “ I always downa 
mit der rent vens I leave a house or a garten. It is goot to 
pay de debts ; ja, it ist herr goot.” 


j THE REDSKINS. 95 

I This answer caused the clergyman and his daughter to 
I smile, while Opportunity laughed outright. 

“You won’t make much of your Dutch friend,'* Sen,” 
cried this buoyant young lady ; “ he says you ought to 
keep on paying rent !” 

“ I apprehend Mr. Dafidson does not exactly understand 
the case,” answered Seneca, who was a good deal discon- 
certed, but was bent on maintaining his point. “ I have 
understood you to say that you are a man of liberal princi- 
ples, Mr. Dafidson, and that you Ve come to America to 
enjoy the light of intelligence and the benefits of a free go- 
vernment.” 

“ Ja ; ven I might coome to America, I say, veil, dat ’tis 
a goot coontry, vhere an honest man might haf vhat he 
’arns, ant keep it, too. Ja, ja !-dat ist vhat I say, ant vhat 
I dinks.” 

I “I understand you, sir; you come from a part of the 
world where the nobles eat up the fat of the land, taking 
the poor man’s share as well as his own, to live in a coun 
try where the law is, or soon will be, so equal that no citi- 
zen will dare to talk about his estates, and hurt the feelin’s 
of such as haven’t got any.” 

My uncle so well aftected an innocent perplexity at the 
drift of this remark as to make me smile, in spite of an effort 
to conceal it, Mary Warren saw that smile, and another 
glance of intelligence was exchanged between us ; though 
the young lady immediately withdrew her look, a Little con- 
sciously and with a slight blush. 

“ I say that you like equal laws and equal privileges, 

! friend Dafidson,” continued Seneca, with emphasis ; “ and 
that you have seen too much of the evils of nobility and of 
feudal oppression in the old world, to wish to fall in with 
them in the new.” 

“ Der noples ant der feudal privileges ist no goot,” an- 
swered the trinket-pedlar, shaking his head with an appear- 
i ance of great distaste. 

“ Ay, I knew it would be so ; you see, Mr. Warren, no 
man who has ever lived under a feudal system can ever feel 
otherwise.” 

“ But what have we to do with feudal systems, Mr. New- 
come? and what is there in common between the landlords 


THE REDSKINS. 


96 ^' 

of New York and the nobles of Europe, and between their 
leases and feudal tenures 

“What is there? A vast deal too much, sir, take my 
word for it. Do not our very governors, even while ruth- 
lessly calling on one citizen to murder another ” 

“ Nay, nay, Mr. Newcome,” interrupted Mary Warren, 
laughing, “ the governors call on the citizens not to murder 
each other.” 

“ I understand you. Miss Mary ; but we shall make anti- 
renters of you both before we aro done. Surely, sir, there 
is a great deal too much resemblance between the nobles of 
Europe and our landlords, when the honest and free-born 
tenants of the last are obliged to pay tribute for permission 
to live on the very land that they till, and which they cause 
to bring forth its increase.” 

“But men who are not noble let their lands in Europe; 
nay, the very serfs, as they become free and obtain riches, 
buy lands and let them, in some parts of the old world, as I 
have heard and read.” 

“ All feudal, sir. The whole system is pernicious and 
feudal, serf or no serf.” 

“ But, Mr. Newcome,” said Mary Warren, quietly, thougfi 
with a sort of demure irony in her manner that said she was 
not without humour, and understood herself very well, “ even 
you let your land — land that you lease, too, and which you 
do not own, except as you hire it from Mr. Littlepage.” 

Seneca gave a hem, and was evidently disconcerted ; but 
he had too much of the game of the true progressive move- 
ment — which merely means to lead in changes, though they 
may lead to the devil — to give the matter up. Repeating 
the hem, more to clear his brain than to clear his throat, he 
hit upon his answer, and brought it out with something very 
like triumph. 

“ That is one of the evils of the present system. Miss 
Mary. Did I own the two or three fields you mean, and to 
attend to which I have no leisure, I might sell them ; but 
now it is impossible, since I can give no deed. The instant 
my poor uncle dies — and he can’t survive a week, being, as 
you must know, nearly gone — the whole property, mills, 
tavern, farms, timber-lot and all, fall in to young Hugh Lit- 
tlepage, who is off frolicking in Europe, doing rio good to 


THE REDSKINS 


97 

himself or others, I’ll venture to say, if the truth were ! 
known. That is another of the hardships of the feudal sys- | 
tern ; it enables one man to travel in idleness, wasting hi>i 
substance in foreign lands, while it keeps another at home, 
at the plough-handles and the cart-tail.” 

“ And why do you suppose Mr. Hugh Littlepage wastes 
his substance, and is doing himself and country no good in ! 
foreign lands, Mr. Newcome? That is not at all the cha- 
racter I hear of him, nor is it the result that I expect to see 
from his travels.” 

“ The money he spends in Europe might do a vast deal I 
of good at Ravensnest, sir.” ' | 

“ For my part, my dear sir,” put in Mary again, in her j 

quiet but pungent way, “ 1 think it remarkable that neither i 

of our late governors has seen fit to enumerate the facts just j 
mentioned by Mr. Newcome. among those that are opposed j 
to the spirit of the institutions. It is, indeed, a great hard- j 
ship that Mr. Seneca Newcome cannot sell Mr. Hugh Lit I 
llcpage’s land.” 

“ 1 complain less of that,” cried Seneca, a little hastil} 

“ than of the circumstance that ail my rights in the property 
must go with the death of my uncle. That, at least, even 
you. Miss Mary% must admit is a great hardship.” 

“ If your uncle w-ere unexpectedly to revive, and live ! 

twenty years, Mr. Newcome ” | 

“ No, no. Miss Mary,” answered Seneca, shaking his j 
head in a melancholy manner ; “ that is absolutely impos- 
sible. It would not surprise me to find him dead and buried 
on our return.” _ [ 

“But, admit that you maybe mistaken, and that your 
lease should continue — you would still have a rent to pay?” 

“Of that I wouldn’t complain in the least. If Mr. Dun 
ning, Littlepage’s agent, will just promise, in as much as I 

half a sentence, that we can get a new lease on the old j 

terms, I ’d not say a syllable about it.” | 

“ Well, here is one proof that the system has its advan- j 
tages !” exclaimed Mr. Warren, cheerfully. “ I ’m delighted 
to hear you say this ; for it is something to have a class of 
men among us whose simple promises, in a matter of mo- 
ney, have so much value ! It is to be hoped that their ex-^ 
emple will not be lost.” 

VoL. I.— 9 


THE REDSKINS 


1 


i “ Mr. Newcome has made an admission I am also glad to 
I hear,” added Mary, as soon as her father had done speak- 

ing. “ His willingness to accept a new lease on the old 
terms is a proof that he has been living under a good bar- 
I gain for himself hitherto, and that down to the present mo- 
I ment he has been the obliged party.” 

I This was very simply said, but it bothered Seneca ama- 

I zingly. As for myself, I was delighted with it, and could 

I have kissed the pretty, arch creature who had just uttered 
i the remark ; though I will own that as much might have 

! been done without any great reluctance, had she even held 

I her tongue. As for Seneca, he did what most men are apt 
j to do when they have the consciousness of not appearing 
particularly well in a given point of view ; he endeavoured 
I to present himself to the eyes of his companions in an- 
I other. 

! “ There is one thing, Mr. Warren, that I think you will 

I admit ought not to be,” he cried, exultingly, “ whatever Miss 

I Mary thinks about it ; and that is, that the Littlepage pew in 

j your church ought to come down.” 

j “ I will not say that much, Mr. Newcome, though I rather 

i think my daughter will. I believe, my dear, you are of 

1 Mr. Newcome’s way of thinking in respect to this canopied 
j pew, and also in respect to the old hatchments'?” 

“ I wish neither was in the church,” answered Mary, in 
a low voice. 

From that moment I was fully resolved neither should be, 
as soon as I got into a situation to control the matter. 

“ In that I agree with you entirely, my child,” resumed 
• the clergyman ; “ and were it not for this movement con- 
nected with the rents, and the false principles that have been 
so boldly announced of late years, I might have taken on 
myself the authority, as rector, to remove the hatchments. 
Even according to the laws connected with the use of such 
things, they should have been taken away a generation or 
two back. As to the pew, it is a different matter. It is 
! private property ; was constructed with the church, which 
! was built itself by the joint liberality of the Littlepages and 
! mother Trinity ; and it would be a most ungracious act to 
I undertake to destroy it under such circumstances, and more 
i especially in the absence of its owner.” 


l 


THE REDSKINS. 


99 

I “You agree, however, that it ought not to be there?” 
asked Seneca, with exultation. 

“ I wish with all my heart it were not. I dislike every 
I thing like worldly distinction in the house of God ; and he- 
j raldic emblems, in particular, seem to me very much out of 
! place where the cross is seen to be in its proper place.” 

I “ Wa-all, now, Mr. Warren, I can’t say 1 much fancy 
crosses about churches either. What’s the use in raising 
I vain distinctions of any sort. A church is but a house, after 
j all, and ought so to be regarded.” 

I “ True,” said Mary, firmly ; “ but the house of God-^’ 

“ Yes, yes, we all know. Miss Mary, that you Episcopa- 
lians look more at outward things, and more respect out- 
ward things, than most of the other denominations of the 
country.” 

“Do you call leases ‘outward things,’ Mr. Newcome?” 
asked Mary, archly ; “ and contracts, and bargains, and 
promises, and the rights of property, and the obligation to 
* do as you would be done by V ” 

“Law! good folks,”^ cried Opportunity, who had been 
all this time tumbling over the trinkets, “ I wish it was 
I ‘ down with the rent’ for ever, with all my heart ; and that 
I not another word might ever be said on the subject. Here 
is one of the prettiest pencils, Mary, I ever did see ; and its 
price is only four dollars. I wish, Sen, you’d let the rent 
alone, and make me a present of this very pencil.” 

I As this was an act of which Seneca had not the least in- 
I tention of being guilty, he merely shifted his hat from one 
I side of his head to the other, began to whistle, and then he 
coolly left the room. My uncle Ro profited by the occa- 
I sion to beg Miss Opportunity would do him the honour to 
i accept the pencil as an olfering from himself. 

! “ You an’t surely in earnest !” exclaimed Opportunity 

i flushing up with surprise and pleasure. “ Why, you tola 
! me the price was four dollars ; and even that seems to me 
I desperate little I” 

' “ Dat ist de price to anudder,” said the gallant trinket- 

' dealer; “ but dat ist not de price to you, Miss Opportunity, 
i Ve shall trafel togedder ; ant vhen ve gets to your country 
I you vill dell me de best houses vhere I might go mit my 
I vatches ant drinkets.” 


L. 


100 THE REDSKINS. 

“That I will ; and get you in at the Nest House, in ihe 
bargain,” cried Opportunity, pocketing the pencil without 
further parley. 

In the mean time my uncle selected a very neat seal, the 
handsomest he had, being of pure metal, and having a real 
topaz in it, and offered it tb Mary Warren, with his best 
bow. I watched the clergyman’s daughter with anxiety, 
as I witnessed the progress of this galanterie, doubting and 
hoping at each change of the ingenuous and beautiful coum 
tenance of her to whom the offering was made. Mary co- 
loured, smiled, seemed embarrassed, and, as I feared, for a 
single moment doubting ; but I must have been mistaken, 
as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner possible, 
declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity’s 
having just adopted a different course added very much to 
her embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said some- 
thing to lessen the seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. 
Luckily for herself, however, she had a gentleman to deal 
with, instead of one in the station that my uncle Ro had vo- 
luntarily assumed. When this offering was made, the pre- 
tended pedlar was ignorant altogether of the true characters 
of the clergyman and his daughter, not even knowing that 
he saw the rector of St. Andrew’s, Ravensnest. But the 
manner of Mary at once disabused him of an error into 
which he had fallen through her association with Opportu- 
nity, and he now drew back himself with perfect tact, bow- 
ing and apologizing in a way that I thought must certainly 
betray his disguise. It did not, however; for Mr. Warren, 
with a smile that denoted equally satisfaction at his daugh- 
ter’s conduct, and a grateful sense of the other’s intended 
Jiberality, but with a simplicity that was of proof, turned to 
me and begged a tune on the flute which I had drawn from 
my pocket and was holding in my hand, as expecting some 
such invitation. 

If I have any accomplishment, it is connected with music; 
and particularly with the management of the flute. On this 
occasion I was not at all backward about showing off, and 
I executed two or three airs, from the best masters, with as 
much care as if I had been playing to a salon in one of the 
best quarters of Paris. I could see that Mary and her father 
were both surprised at the execution, and that the first was 



THE REDSKINS. 


101 

delighted. We had a most agreeable quarter of an hour 
fogethe;; and might have had two, had not Opportunity — 
who was certainly well named, being apropos of every- 
thing — began of her own accord to sing, though not with- 
out inviting Mary to join her. As the latter declined this 
public exhibition, as well as my uncle Ro’s offering, Sene- 
ca’s sister had it all to herself; and she sang no less than 
three songs, in quick succession, and altogether unasked. T 
shall not stop to characterize the music or the words of 
these songs, any further than to say they were all, more or 
less, of the Jim Crow school, and executed in a way that 
did them ample justice. 

As it was understood that we were all to travel in the 
same train, the interview lasted until we were ready to pro- 
ceed ; nor did it absolutely terminate then. As Mary and 
Opportunity sat together, Mr. Warren asked me to share 
his seat, regardless of the hurdy-gurdy ; though my attire, 
in addition to its being perfectly new and neat, was by no 
means of the mean character that it is usual to see adorning 
street-music in general. On the whole, so long as the in 
strument was not en evidence^ I might not have seemed 
very much out of place seated at Mr. Warren’s side. In 
this manner we proceeded to Saratoga, my uncle keeping 
up a private discourse the vvhole way with Seneca, on mat- 
ters connected with the rent movement. 

As for the divine and myself, we had also much interest- 
ing talk together. I was questioned about Europe in gene- 
ral, and Germany in particular; and had reason to think 
my answers gave surprise as well as satisfaction. It was 
not an easy matter to preserve the Doric of my assumed 
dialect, though practice and fear contributed their share to 
render me content to resort to it. I made many mistakes, 
of course, but my listeners were not the persons to discover 
them. I say my listeners, for I soon ascertained that Mary 
Warren, who sat on the seat directly before us, was a pro- 
foundly attentive listener to all that passed. This circum- 
stance did not render me the less communicative, though it 
I did increase the desire I felt to render what I said worthy 
of such a listener. As for Opportunity, she read a news- 
paper a little while, munched an apple a very little while, 

9 # 


THE REDSKINS. 


102 

and slept the rest of the way. But the journey between 
modern Troy and Saratoga is not a long one, and was soon 
accomplished. 


CHAPTER VIL 

“ I will tell you ; 

If you’ 11 bestow a small (of what you have little). 

Patience, a while, you ’ll hear the belly’s answer.” 

Mestenius Agkippa. 

At the springs we parted, Mr. Warren and his friends 
finding a conveyance, with their own horses, in readiness to 
carry them the remainder of the distance. As for my uncle 
and myself, it was understood that we were to get on in the 
best manner we could, it being expected that we should 
reach Ravensnest in the course of a day or two. Accord- 
ing to the theory of our new business, we ought to travel on 
foot, but we had a reservation in petto that promised us also 
the relief of a comfortable wagon of some sort or other. 

“ Well,” said my uncle, the moment we had got far 
enough from our new acquaintances to be out of ear-shot, 
“ I must say one thing in behalf of Mr. Seneky, as he calls 
himself, or Sen, as his elegant sister calls him, and that is, 
that I believe him to be one of the biggest scoundrels the 
state holds.” 

“ This is not drawing his character en I answered, 

laughing. “ But why do you come out so decidedly upon 
him at this particular moment?” 

“ Because this particular moment happens to be the first 
in which I have had an opportunity to say anything since 
I have known the rascal. You must have remarked that 
the fellow held me in discourse from the time we left Troy 
until we stopped here.” 

“ Certainly ; I could see that his tongue was in motion 
unceasingly : what he said, I have to conjecture.” 


THE REDSKINS. 


103 

“ He said enough to lay bare his whole character. Our 
iubject was anti-rent, which he commenced with a view to 
explain it to a foreigner ; l>ut I managed to lead him on, 
step by step, until he let me into all his notions and expecta- 
tions on the subject. Why, Hugh, the villain actually pro- 
posed that you and I should enlist, and turn ourselves into 
two of the rascally mock redskins.” 

“Enlist! Do they still persevere -so far as to keep up 
that organization, in the very teeth of the late law?” 

“ The law ! What do two or three thousand voters care 
for any penal law, in a country like this? Who is to en- 
force the law against them? Did they commit murder, and 
j were they even convicted, as might happen under the excite- 
I ment of such a crime, they very well know nobody would 
i be hanged. Honesty is always too passive in matters that 
j do not immediately press on its direct interests. It is for 
I the interest of every honest man in the State to set his face 
j against this anti-rent movement, and to do all he can, by 

I his vote and influence, to put it down into the dirt, out of 

j which it sprang, and into which it should be crushed ; but 

! not one in a hundred, even of those who condemn it toto 

I caslo, will go a foot out of their way even to impede its pro 
gress. All depends on those who have the power ; and they 
will exert that power so as to conciliate the active rogue, 
rather than protect the honest man. You are to remember 
1 that the laws are executed here on the principle that ‘ what 
j is everybody’s business is n^obody’s business.’ ” 

I “ You surely do not believe that the authorities will wink 
j at an open violation of the laws I” 

“ That will depend on the characters of individuals ; most 
will, but some will not. You and I would be punished soon 
enough, were there a chance, but the mass would escape. 
Oh 1 we have had some precious disclosures in our corner 
of the car ! The two or three men who joined Newcome are 
from anti-rent districts, and seeing me with their friend, little 
i reserve has been practised. One of those men is an anti- 
1 vent lecturer ; and, being somewhat didactic, he favoured me 
I with some of his arguments, seriatim.^’’ 

“ How ! Have they got to lectures ? I should have sup- 
posed the newspapers would have been the means of circu- 
lat^ng their ideas.” 


104 


THE REDSKINS 


“ Oh, the newspapers, like hogs swimming too freely, 
have cut their own throats ; and it seems to be fashionable, 
just at this moment, not to believe them. Lecturing is the 
great moral lever of the nation at present.” 

“ But a man can lie in a lecture, as well as in a news- 
paper.” 

“ Out of all question ; and if many of the lecturers are 
of the school of this Mr. Holmes — ‘ Lecturer Holmes,’ as 
Seneca called him — but, if many are of his school, a pretty 
set of liberty-takers with the truth must they be.” 

“ You detected him, then, in some of these liberties?” | 
“ In a hundred : nothing was easier than for a man in i 
my situation to do that; knowing, as I did, so much of the 
history of the land-titles of the State. One of his arguments | 
partakes so largely of the weak side of our system, that I | 
must give it to you. He spoke of the gravity of the dis- I 
turbances — of the importance to the peace and character of ; 
the State of putting an end to them ; and then, by way of I 
corollary to his proposition, produced a scheme for chang- ( 
ing the titles, in order to satisfy the people !” ! 

“ The people, of course, meaning the tenants ; the land- | 
lords and their rights passing for nothing.” j 

“ That is one beautiful feature of the morality — an eye, j 

or a cheek, if you will — but here is the nose, and highly Ro- I 

man it is. A certain portion of the community wish to get j 

rid of the obligations of their contracts ; and finding it can- j 

not be done by law, they resort to means that are opposed 
to all law, in order to effect their purposes. Public law- 
breakers, violators of the public peace, they make use of 
their own wrong as an argument for perpetuating another 
that can be perpetuated in no other way. I have been look- 
ing over some of the papers containing proclamations, &c., 
and find that both law-makers and law-breakers are of one 
mind as to this charming policy. Without a single manly | 

effort to put down the atrocious wrong that is meditated, the | 

existence of the wrong itself is made an argument for meet- | 

ing it with concessions, and thus sustaining it. Instead of j 

using the means the institutions have provided for putting 
down all such unjust and illegal combinations, the combina- 
tions are a sufficient reason of themselves why the laws 
should be altered, and wrong be done to a few, in order that 
many may be propitiated, and their votes secured.” 


THE REDSKINS 


105 

This is reasoning that can be used snly where real 
grievances exist. Bui there are no real grievances in the 
case of the tenants. They may mystify weak heads in the 
instance of the Manor leases, with their quarter sales, fat 
hens, loads of wood and days’ works ; but my leases are all 
j on three lives, with rent payable in money, and with none 
j of the conditions that are called feudal, though no more feu- 
j dal than any other bargain to pay articles in kind. One 
might just as well call a bargain made by a butcher to de- 
I liver pork for a series of years feudal. However, feudal or 
i not, my leases, and those of most other landlords, are run- 
I ning on lives ; and yet, by what I can learn, the discontent 
i is general ; and the men who have solemnly bargained to 
I give up their farms at the expiration of the lives are just as 
i warm for the ‘ down-rent’ and titles in fee, as the Manor 
i tenants themselves ! They say that the obligations given 
! for actual purchases are beginning to be discredited.” 

I “ You are quite right ; and there is one of the frauds prac- 
I tised on the world at large. In the public documents, only 
j the Manor leases, with their pretended feudal covenants 
I and their perpetuity, are kept in view, while the combina- 
I tion goes to all leases, or nearly all, and certainly to all 
j sorts of leases, where the estates are of sufficient extent to 
j allow of the tenants to make head against the landlords. I 
I dare say there are hundreds of tenants, even on the property 
I of the Renssalaers, who are honest enough to be willing tc 
j comply with their contracts if the conspirators would let 
I them; but the rapacious spirit is abroad among the occu- 
i pants of other lands, as well as among the occupants of 
i theirs, and the government considers its existence a proof 
I that concessions should be made. The discontented must 
j be appeased, right or not !” 

I “ Did Seneca say anything on the subject of his own in- 
I terests ?” 

i “ He did ; not so much in conversation with me, as in the 
I discourse he held with ‘ Lecturer Holmes.’ I listened at- 
I lentively, happening to be familiar, through tradition and 
through personal knowledge, with all the leading facte of 
the case. As you will soon be called on to act in that mat- 
ter for yourself, I may as well relate them to you. They 
will servo, also, as guides to the moral merits of the occu- 


106 THE REDSKINS. 

pation of half the farms on your estate. These are things, 
moreover, you would never know by public statements, 
since all the good bargains are smothered in silence, while 
those that may possibly have been a little unfavourable to 
the tenant are proclaimed far and near. It is quite possible 
that, among the many thousands of leased farms that are to 
be found in the State, some bad bargains may have been 
made by the tenants ; but what sort of a government is that 
which should undertake to redress evils of this nature? If 
either.of the Renssalaers, or you yourself, were to venture 
to send a memorial to the Legislature setting forth the 
grievances ^you labour under in connection with this very 
‘ mill lot’ — and serious losses do they bring to you, let me 
tell you, though grievances, in the proper sense of the term, 
they are not — you and your memorial would be met with a 
general and merited shout of ridicule and derision. One 
man has no rights, as^opposed to a dozen.” 

“ So much difference is there between ‘ de la Rochefou- 
cauld et de la Rochefoucauld.'''' 

“ All the difference in the world : but let me give you the 
facts, for they will serve as a rule by which to judge of 
many others. In the first place, my great-grandfather Mor* 
daunt, the ‘ patentee,’ as he was called, first let the mill lot 
to the grandfather of this Seneca, the tenant then being quite 
a young man. In order to obtain settlers, in that early day, 
it was necessary to give them great advantages, for there 
was vastly more land than there were people to work it. 
The first lease, therefore, was granted on highly advanta- 
geous terms to that Jason Newcome, whom I can just re- 
member. He had two characters ; the one, and the true, 
which set him down as a covetous, envious, narrow-minded 
provincial, who was full of cant and roguery. Some tradi- 
tions exist among us of his having been detected in stealing 
timber, and in various other frauds. In public he is one of 
those virtuous and hard-working pioneers who have trans- 
mitted to their descendants all their claims, those that are 
supposed to be moral, as well as those that are known to be 
legal. This flummery may do for elderly ladies, who affect 
snuff and bohea, and for some men who have minds of the 
same calibre, but they are not circumstances to influence 
such legislators and executives as are fit to be legislator! 


THE REDSKINS. 107 

and executives. Not a great while before my father’s mar- 
riage, the said Jason still living and in possession, the lease 
expired, and a new one was granted for three lives, of 
twenty-one years certain, of which one of the lives is still 
running. That lease was granted, on terms highly favoura- 
ble to the tenant, sixty years since, old Newcome, luckily 
for himself and his posterity, having named this long-lived 
son as one of his three lives. Now Seneky, God bless him ! 
is known to lease a few of the lots that have fallen to his 
share of the property for more money than is required to 
meet all your rent on the whole. Such, in effect, has been 
the fact with that mill-lot for the last thirty years, or even 
longer; and the circumstance of the great length of time so 
excellent a bargain has existed, is used as an argument why 
the Newcomes ought to have a deed of the property for a 
nominal price; or, indeed, for no price at all, if the tenants 
could have their wishes.” 

“ I am afraid there is nothing unnatural in thus pervert- 
ing principles; half mankind appear to me really to get a 
great many of their notions dessus dessous” 

“Half is a small proportion; as you will find, my boy, 
when you grow older. But was it not an impudent pro- 
posal of Seneca, when ho wished you and me to join the 
corps of ‘ Injins?’ ” 

“ What answer did you make ? Though I suppose it would 
hardly do for us to go disguised and armed, now that the 
law makes it a felony, even while our motive, at the bottom, 
might be to aid the law.” 

“ Catch me at that act of folly ! Why, Hugh, could they 
prove such a crime on either of us, or any one connected 
with an old landed family, we should be the certain victims. 
No governor would dare pardon us. No, no ; clemency is 
a word reserved for the obvious and confirmed rogues.” 

“ We might get a little favour on the score of belonging 
to a very powerful body of offenders.” 

“True; I forgot that circumstance. The more nume- 
rous the crimes and the criminals, the greater the proba- 
bility of impunity ; and this, too, not on the general principle 
that power cannot be resisted, but on the particular prin- 
ciple that a thousand or two votes are of vast importance. 


THE REDSKINS 


I 108 

! where three thousand can turn an election. God only knows 
where this thing is to end !” 

i We now approached one of the humbler taverns of the 
! place, where it was necessary for those of our apparent pre- 
I tensions to seek lodgings, and the discourse was dropped. 

I It was several weeks too early in the season for the Springs 

I to be frequented, and we found only a few of those in the 

! place who drank the waters because they really required 

' them. My upcle had been an old stager at Saratoga — a 

i beau of the “ purest water,” as he laughingly described him- 
! self — and he was enabled to explain all that it was neces- 

sary for me to know. An American watering-place, how- 
ever, is so very much inferior to most of those in Europe, 
as to furnish very little, in their best moments, beyond the 
human beings they contain, to attract the attention of the 
traveller. 

In the course of the afternoon we availed ourselves of the 
opportunity of a return vehicle to go as far as Sandy Hill, 
where we passed the night. The next morning, bright and 
early, we got into a hired w^agon and drove across the coun- 
try until near night, when we paid for our passage, sent the 
vehicle back, and sought a tavern. At this house, where 
we passed the night, we heard a good deal of the “ Injins” hav- 
ing made their appearance on the Liltlepage lands, and many 
conjectures as to the probable result. We were in a town- 
ship, or rather on a property that was called Moosejridge, 
and which had once belonged to us, but which, having been 
sold, and in a great measure paid for by the occupants, no 
one thought of impairing the force of the covenants under 
which the parties held. The most trivial observer will soon 
discover that it is only when something is to be gained that 
the aggrieved citizen wishes to disturb a covenant. Now, 
I never heard any one say a syllable against either of the 
covenants of his lease under which he held his farm, let him 
be ever so loud against those which would shortly compel 
him to give it up ! Had I complained of the fact — and such 
facts abounded — that my predecessors had incautiously let 
farms at such low prices that the lessees had been. enabled 
to pay the rents for half a century by subletting small por- 
tions of them, as my uncle Ro had intimated, I should be 


‘THE REDSKINS. 


109 

pointed at as a fool. “ Stick to your bond” would have been 
the cry, and “ Shylock” would have been forgotten. I do 
not say that there is not a vast difference between the means 
of acquiring intelligence, the cultivation, the manners, the 
social conditions, and, in some senses, the social obligations 
of an affluent landlord and a really hard-working, honest, 
well-intentioned husbandman, his tenant — differences that 
should dispose the liberal and cultivated gentleman to bear 
in mind the advantages he has perhaps inherited, and not 
acquired by his own means, in such a way as to render 
him, in a certain degree, the repository of the interests of 
those who hold under him ; but, while I admit all this, and 
say that the community which does not possess such a class 
of men is to be pitied, as it loses one of the most certain 
means of liberalizing and enlarging its notions, and of im- 
proving its civilization, I am far from thinking that the men 
of this class are to have their real superiority of position, 
with its consequences, thrown into their faces only when 
they are expected to give, while they are grudgingly denied 
it on all other occasions ! There is nothing so likely to ad- 
vance the habits, opinions, and true interests of a rural popu- 
lation, as to have them all directed by the intelligence and 
combined interests that ought to mark the connection be- 
tween landlord and tenant. It may do for one class of po- 
litical economists to prate about a state of things which sup- 
poses every husbandman a freeholder, and rich enough to 
maintain his level among the other freeholders of the State, 
But we all know that as many minute gradations in means 
must and do exist in a community, as there exists grada- 
tions in characters. A majority soon will, in the nature of 
things, be below the level of the freeholder, and by destroy- 
ing the system of having landlords and tenants, two great 
evils are created — the one preventing men of large fortunes 
from investing in lands, as no man will place his money 
where ifwill b^ insecure or profitless, thereby cutting otf 
real estate generally from the benefits that might be and 
would be conferred by their capital, as well as cutting it off 
from the benefits of the increased price which arise from 
having such buyers in the market ; and the other is, to pre- 
vent any man from being a husbandman who has not the 
money necessary to purchase a farm. But they who want 
VoL. I.— 10 


THE REDSKINS. 


110 

farms now, and they who will want votes next November 
do not look quite so far ahead as that, while shouting “ equal 
rights, ’ they are, in fact, for preventing the poor husband- 
man from being anything but a day-labourer. 

We obtained tolerably decent lodgings at our inn, though 
the profoundest patriot America possesses, if be know any- 
thing of other countries, or of the best materials of his own, 
cannot say much in favour of the sleeping arrangements of 
an ordinary country inn. The same money and the same 
trouble would render that which is now the very beau ideal 
of discomfort, at least tolerable, and in many instances good. 
But who is to produce this reform ? According to the opi- 
nions circulated among us, the humblest hamlet we have has 
already attained the highest point of civilization ; and as for 
the people, without distinction of classes, it is universally 
admitted that they are the best educated, the acutest, and the 
most intelligent in Christendom; — no, I must correct myself; 
they are all this, except when they are in the act of leasing 
lands, and then the innocent and illiterate husbandmen are 
the victims of the arts of designing landlords, the wretches 

* Mr. Hugh Littlepage writes a little sharply, but there is truth in 
all he says, at the bottom. His tone is probably produced by the fact 
that there is so serious an attempt to deprive him of his old paternal 
estate, an attempt which is receiving support in high quarters. In 
addition to this provocation, the Littlepages, as the manuscript shows 
farther on, are traduced, as one means of effecting the objects of the 
anti-renters ; no man, in any community in which it is necessary to 
work on public sentiment in order to accomplish such a purpose, ever 
being wronged without being calumniated. As respects the inns, truth 
compels me, as an old traveller, to say that Mr. Littlepage has much 
reason for what he says. I have met with a better bed in the lowest 
French tavern I ever was compelled to use, and in one instance I slept 
in an inn frequented by carters, than in the best purely country inn in 
America. In the way of neatness, however, more is usually to be 
found in our New York village taverns than in the public hotels of 
Paris itself. As for the hit touching the intelligence of the people, it 
is merited ; for I have myself heard subtle distinctions drawn to show 
that the “ people” of a former generation were not as knowing as the 
“people” of this, and imputing the covenants of the older leases to 
that circumstance, instead of imputing them to their true cause, the 
opinions and practices of the times. Half a century’s experience would 
induce me to say that the “ people” were never particularly dull in 
making a bargain. — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 


Hi 

We passed an hour on the piazza, after eating our sup- 
per, and there being a collection of men assembled there, 
inhabitants of the hamlet, we had an opportunity to get into 
communication with them. My uncle sold a watch, and I 
played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popu- 
lar. After this beginning, the discourse turned on the en- 
grossing subject of the day, anti-rentism. The principal 
speaker was a young man of about six-and-twenty, of a 
sort of shabby genteel -air and appearance, whom I soon 
discovered to be the attorney of the neighbourhood. His 
name was Hubbard, while that of the other principal speaker 
was Hall. The last was a mechanic, as I ascertained, and 
was a plain-looking working-man of middle age. Each of 
these persons seated himself on a common “ kitchen chair,” 
leaning back against the side of the house, and, of course, 
resting on the two hind legs of the rickety support, while 
he placed his own feet on the rounds in front. The atti- 
tudes were neither graceful nor picturesque, but they were 
so entirely common as to excite no surprise. As for Hajl, 
he appeared perfectly contented with his situation, after 
fidgeting a little to get the two supporting legs of his chair 
just where he wanted them ; but Hubbard’s eye was restless, 
uneasy, and even menacing, for more than a minute. He 
drew a knife from his pocket — a small, neat pen-knife only, it 
is true— gazed a little wildly about him, and just as I thought 
he intended to abandon his nicely poised chair, and to make 
an assault on one of the pillars that upheld the roof of the 
piazza, the innkeeper advanced, holding in his hand several 
narrow slips of pine board, one of which he offered at onct^ 
to ’Squire Hubbard. This relieved the attorney, who took 
the wood, and'was soon deeply plunged in, to me, the un- 
known delights of whittling. I cannot explain the myste- 
rious pleasure that so many find in whittling, though the 
prevalence of the custom is so well known. But I cannot 
explain the pleasure so many find in chewing tobacco, or in 
smoking. The precaution of the landlord was far from 
being unnecessary, and appeared to be taken in good part 
by all to whom he offered “ whittling-picces,” some six or 
eight in the whole. The state of the piazza, indeed, proved 
that the precaution was absolutely indispensable, if he did 
not wish to see the house come tumbling down about his 


THE n E DSKINS. 


112 

h€>ad. In order that those who have never seen such thinga 
may understand their use, I will go a. little out of the way 
to explain. 

The inn w’as of wood, a hemlock frame with a “ siding” 
of clap-boards. In this there was nothing remarkable, many 
countries of Europe, even, still building principally of wood. 
Houses of lath and plaster were quite common, until within 
a few years, even in large towns. I remember to have seen 
some of these constructions, while in London, in close con- 
nection with the justly celebrated Westminster Hall ; and of 
such materials is the much-talked-of miniature castle of 
Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill. But the inn of Moose- 
ridge had some pretensions to architecture, besides being 
three or four times larger than any other house in the place. 

A piazza it enjoyed, of course; it must be a pitiful village 
inn that does not : and building, accessaries and all, rejoiced 
in several coats of a spurious white lead. The columns of 
this piazza, as well as the clap-boards of the house itself, 
however, exhibited the proofs of the danger of abandoning 
your true whittler to his own instincts. Spread-eagles, five- 
points, American flags, huzzahs for Polk ! the initials of 
names, and names at full length, with various other similar 
conceits, records, and ebullitions of patriotic or party-otic 
feelings, were scattered up and down with an affluence that 
said volumes in favour of the mint in which they had been 
coined. But the most remarkable memorial of the industry 
of the guests was to be found on one of the columns; and I 
it was one at a corner, too, and consequently of double im- I 
portance to the superstructure — unless, indeed, the house 
were built on that well-known principle of American archi- 
tecture of the last century, which made the architrave up- 
hold the pillar, instead of the pillar the architrave. The 
column in question was of white pine, as usual — though lat- 
terly, in brick edifices, bricks and stucco are much resorted 
to — and, at a convenient height for the whittlers, it was lite- 
raiiy cut two-thirds in two. The gash was very neatly 
maae — that much must be said for it — indicating skill and ! 
attention ; and the surfaces of the wound were smoothed in ! 
a manner to prove that appearances were not neglected. j 
“ Vat do das ?” I asked of the landlord, pointing to this 
gaping wound in the main column of his piazza. 


THE REDSKINS. 113 

“ That ! Oh ! That ’s only the whittlers,” answered the 
host, with a good-natural smile. 

Assuredly the Americans are the best-natured people on 
earth ! Here was a man whose house was nearly tumbling 
down about his ears — always bating the principle in archi- 
tecture just named — and he could smile as Nero may be 
supposed to have done when fiddling over the conflagration 
of Rome. 

“ But vhy might de vhittler vhittle down your house?” 

“Oh! this is a free country, you know, and folks do 
pretty much as they like in it,” returned the still smiling 
host. “ I let ’em cut away as long as I dared, but it was 
high time to get out ‘ whittling-pieces’ I believe you must 
own. It’s best always to keep a ruff (roof) over a man’s 
head, to be ready for bad weather. A week longer would 
have had the column in two.” 

“ Veil, I dinks I might not bear dat ! Vhat ist mein house 
ist mein house, ant dey shall not so moch vittles.” 

“ By letting ’em so much vittles there, they so much vit- 
tles in the kitchen ; so you see there is policy in having 
your Linder-pinnin’ knocked away sometimes, if it’s done 
by the right sort of folks.” 

“You’re a stranger in these parts, friend?” observed 
Hubbard, complacently, for by this time his “ whittling- 
piece” was reduced to a shape, and he could go on reducing 
it, according to some law of the art of w'hittling, with which 
I am not acquainted. “ We are not so particular in such 
matters as in some of your countries in the old world.” 

“ Ja — das I can see. But does not woot ant column cost 
money in America, someding ?” 

“ To be sure it does. There is not a man in the country 
who would undertake to replace that pillar with a new one, 
paint and all, for less than ten dollars.” 

This was an opening for a discussion on the probable cost 
of putting a new pillar into the place of the one that was in- 
jured. Opinions differed, and quite a dozen spoke on the 
subject ; some placing the expense as high as fifteen dollars, 
and others bringing it down as low as five. I was struck 
with the quiet and self-possession with which each man de- 
livered his opinion, as well as with the language used. The 
accent was uniformly provincial, that of Hubbard included, 
10 * 


ill THE REDSKINS. 

having a strong and unpleasant taint of the dialect of New 
England in it ; and some of the expressions savoured a little 
of the stilts of the newspapers; but, on the whole, the lan- 
guage was sufficiently accurate and surprisingly good, con- 
sidering the class in life of the speakers. The conjectures, 
too, manifested great shrewdness and familiarity with prac- 
tical things, as well as, in a few instances, some reading. 
Hall, however, actually surprised me. He spoke with a 
precision and knowledge of mechanics that would have done 
credit to a scholar, and with a simplicity that added to the 
influence of what he said. Some casual remark induced mo 
to put in — “ Veil, I might s’pose an Injin voult cut so das 
column, but I might not s’pose a vhite man could.” This 
opinion gave the discourse a direction towards anli-rentism, 
and in a few minutes it caught all the attention of my uncle 
Ro and myself. 

“ This business is going ahead after all !” observed Hub- 
bard, evasively, after others had had their say. 

“More’s the pity,” put in Hall. “It might have been 
put an end to in a month, at any time, and ought to be put 
an end to in a civilized land.” 

“ You will own, neighbour Hall, notwithstanding, it would 
be a great improvement in the condition of the tenants all 
over the State, could they change their tenures into free- 
holds.” 

“ No doubt ’t would ; and so it would be a great improve- 
ment in the condition of any journeyman in my shop if ho 
could get to be the boss. But that is not the question here , 
the question is, what right has the State to say any man 
shall sell his property unless he wishes to sell it? A pretty 
sort of liberty we should have if we all held our houses and 
gardens under such laws as that supposes !” 

“ But do we not all hold our houses and gardens, and 
farms, too, by some such law?” rejoined the attorney, who 
evidently respected his antagonist, and advanced his own 
opinions cautiously. “ If the public wants land to use, it 
can take it by paying for it.” 

“ Yes, to use; but use is everything. I ’ve read that old 
report of the committee of the House, and don’t subscribe to 
its doctrines at all. Public ‘ policy,’ in that sense, doesn’t 
at all mean public ‘ use.’ If land is wanted for a road, or a 



THE REDSKINS 


115 

fort, or a canal, it must be taken, under a law, by appraise- 
ment, or the thing could not be had at all ; but to pretend, 
because one side to a contract wishes to alter it, that the State 
has a right to interfere, on the ground that the discontented 
can be bought off in this way easier and cheaper than they 
can be made to obey the laws, is but a poor way of support- 
ing the right. The same principle, carried out, might prove 
it would be easier to buy off pickpockets by compromising 
than to punish them. Or it would be easy to get round all 
sorts of contracts in this way.” 

“ But all governments use this power when it becomes 
necessary, neighbour Hall.” 

“ That word necessary covers a great deal of ground, 
’Squire Hubbard. The most that can be made of the ne- 
cessity here is to say it is cheaper, and may help along par- 
ties to their objects better. No man doubts that the State 
of New York can put down these anti-renters; and, I trust, 
will put them down, so far as force is concerned. There is, 
then, no other necessity in the case, to begin with, than the 
necessity which demagogues always feel, of getting as many 
votes as they can.” 

“ After all, neighbour Hall, these votes are pretty power- 
ful weapons in a popular government.” 

“ I ’ll not deny that; and now they talk of a convention 
to alter the constitution^ it is a favourable moment to teach 
such managers they shall not abuse the right of suffrage in 
this way.” 

“ How is it to be prevented? You are an universal suf- 
frage man, I know ?” 

“Yes, I’m for universal suffrage among honest folks; 
but do not wish to have my rulers chosen by them that are 
never satisfied without having their hands in their neigh- 
bours’ pockets. Let ’em put a clause into the constitution 
providing that no town, or village, or county shall hold a 
poll within a given time after the execution of process has 
been openly resisted in it. That would take the conceit out 
of all such law-breakers, in very short order.” 

It was plain that this idea struck the listeners, and several 
even avowed their approbation of the scheme aloud. Hub- 
bard received it as a new thought, but was more reluctant 


n 


116 THE REDSKINS. | 

to admit its practicability. As might be expected from a j 
lawyer accustomed to practise in a small way, his objections 
savoured more of narrow views than of the notions of a 
statesman. 

“ How would you determine the extent of the district to ! 
b« disfranchised 1” he asked. I 

“ Take the legal limits as they stand. If process be re- 
sisted openly by a combination strong enough to look down , 
the agents of the law in a town, disfranchise that town for 
a given period ; if in more than one town, disfranchise the 
offending towns ; if a county, disfranchise the whole 
county.” 

“ But, in that way you would punish the innocent with 
the guilty.” 

It would be for the good of a!l ; besides, you punish the 
innocent for the guilty, or icith the guilty ralher, in a thou- 
sand ways. You and I are taxed to keep drunkards from ■ 
starving, because it is better to do that than to offend hu- 
manity by seeing men die of hunger, or tempting them to 
steal. When you declare martial law you punish the inno- 
cent with the guilty, in one sense; and so you do in a hun- 
dred cases. All we have to ask is, if it be not wiser and 
better to disarm demagogues, and those disturbers of the 
public peace who wish to pervert their right of suffrage to 
so wicked an end, by so simple a process, than to snuffer 
them to effect their purposes by the most flagrant abuse of 
their political privileges ?” 

“ How would you determine when a town should lose the 
right of voting?” 

“ By evidence given in open court. The judges would 
be the proper authority to decide in such a case;"and they 
M'ould decide, beyond all question, nineteen times in twenty, 
right.^ It is the interest of every man who is desirous of 
exercising the suffrage on right principles, to give him some 
such protection against them that wish to exercise the suf- 
frage on wrong. A peace-officer can call on the posse 
comitatus or on the people to aid him ; if enough appear to 
put down the rebels, well and good ; but if enough do not | 
appear, let it be taken as proof that the district is not worthy 
of giving the votes of freemen. They who abuse such a 


THE REDSKINS. 


117 

liberty as man enjoys in this country are the least entitled 
to our sympathies. As for the mode, that could easily be 
determined, as soon as you settled the principle.” 

The discourse went on for an hour, neighbour Hall giving 
his opinions still more at large. I listened equally with 
pleasure and surprise. “ These, then, after all,” 1 said to 
myself, “ are the real bone and sinew of the country. There 
are tens of thousands of this sort of men in the State, and 
why should they be domineered over, and made to submit 
to a legislation and to practices that are so often without 
principle, by the agents of the worst part of the community 1 
Will the honest for ever be so passive, while the corrupt and 
dishonest continue so active ?” On my mentioning these 
notions to my uncle, he answered ; 

“ Yes ; it ever has been so, and, I fear, ever will be so. 
There is the curse of this country,” pointing to a table co- 
vered with newspapers, the invariable companion of an Ame- 
rican inn of any size. “So long as men believe vvhat they 
find there, they can be nothing but dupes or knaves.” 

“ But there is good in newspapers.” 

“ That adds to the curse. If they were nothing but lies, 
the world would soon reject them ; but how few are able to 
separate the true from the false ! Now, how few of these 
papers speak the truth about this very anti rentism ! Occa- 
sionally an honest man in the corps does come out ; but 
where one does this, ten affect to think what they do not 
believe, in order to secure votes; — votes, votes, votes. In 
that simple word lies all the mystery of the matter.” 

“ .Jefferson said, if he were to choose between a govern- 
ment without newspapers, or newspapers without a govern- 
ment, he would take the last.” 

“ Ay, Jefferson did not mean newspapers as they are now. 
I am old enough to see the change that has taken place. In 
his day, three or four fairly convicted lies would damn any 
editor ; now, there are men that stand up under a thousand. 
I’ll tell you what, Hugh, this country is jogging on under 
two of the most antagonist systems possible — Christianity 
and the newspapers. The first is daily hammering into 
every man that he is a miserable, frail, good-for-nothing 
being, while the last is eternally proclaiming the perfection 
of the people and the virtues of self-government.” 


118 


THE REDSKINS. 

“ Perhaps too much stress ought not to be laid on either.’* 

“The first is certainly true, under limitations that we all 
understand ; but as to the last, I will own I want more evi- 
dence than a newspaper eulogy to believe it.” 

After all, my uncle Ro is sometimes mistaken ; though 
candour compels me to acknowledge that he is very often 
right. 


CHAPTER VIII. ^ 

I see thee still ; 

Remembrance, faithful to her trust, 

Calls thee in beauty from the dust ; 

Thou comest in the morning light, 

Thou ’rt with me through the gloomy night ; 

In dreams I meet thee as of old : 

Then thy soft arms my neck enfold, 

And thy sweet voice is in my ear : 

In every sense to memory dear 
I see thee still.” 

Sphague. 

It was just ten in the morning of the succeeding day 
when my uncle Ro and myself came in sight of the old 
house at the Nest. I call it old, for a dwelling that has 
stood more than half a century acquires a touch of the vene- 
rable, in a country like America. To me it was truly old, 
the building having stood there, where I then saw it, for a 
period more than twice as long as that of my own existence, 
and was associated with all my early ideas. From child- 
hood I had regarded that place as my future home, as it 
had been the home of my parents and grand-parents, and, 
in one sense, of those who had gone before them for two 
generations more. The whole of the land in sight — the rich 
bottoms, then waving with grass — the side-hills, the woods, 
the distant mountains — the orchards, dwellings, barns, and 
all the other accessaries of rural life that appertained to the 
soil, were mine, and had thus become without a single act of 


i TIIEREDSKINS. 119 

injustice to any human being, so far as I knew and believed. 
Even the red man had been fairly bought off by Herman 
i Mordaunt, the patentee, and so Susquesus, the Redskin of 
j Ravensnest, as our old Onondago was often called, had ever 
I admitted the fact to be. It was natural that I should love 
an estate thus inherited and thus situated. No civilized 

i MAN, NO MAN, INDEED, SAVAGE OK NOT, HAD EVER BEEN 
I THE OWNER OF THOSE BROAD ACRES, BUT THOSE WHO 
I WERE OF MY OWN BLOOD. This is what few besides Ame- 
ricans can say ; and when it can be said truly, in parts of 
the country where the arts of life have spread, and amid the 
blessings of civilization, it becomes the foundation of a sen- 
timent so profound, that I do not wonder those adventurers- 
errant who are flying about the face of the country, thrust- 
ing their hands into every man’s mess, have not been able 
to find it among their other superficial discoveries. Nothing 
can be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice than the 
feeling that is thus engendered ; and I am certain that the 
general tendency of such an influence is to elevate the feel- 
ings of him who experiences it. 

And there were men among us, high in political station — 
high as such men ever can get, for the consequence of 
having such men in power is to draw down station itself 
nearer to their own natural level — but men in power had 
actually laid down propositions in political economy which, 
i if carried out, would cause me to sell all that estate, reserv- 
ing, perhaps, a single farm for my own use, and reinvest 
the money in such a way as that the interest I obtained | 

I might equal my present income ! It is true, this theory was i 

not directly applied to me, as my farms were to fall in by i 

the covenants of their leases, but it had been directly applied ! 

to Stephen and William Van Rensselaer, and, by implica- | 

tion, to others; and my turn might come next. What busi- ! 

ness had the Rensselaers, or the Livingstons, or the Hunters, j 

or the Littlepages, or the Verplancks, or the Morgans, or the i 

Wadsworths, or five hundred others similarly placed, to en- | 

I tertain “ sentiments” that interfered with “ business,” or that j 

i interfered with the wishes of any straggling Yankee who j 

! had found his way out of New England, and wanted a par | 

! ticular farm on his own terms 1 It is aristocratic to put sen- 

i timent in opposition to trade ; and trade itself is not to 1 

^ I 


120 


THE REDSKINS. 


BE TRADE ANY LONGER THAN ALL THE PROFIT IS TO BE 
FOUND ON THE SIDE OF NUMBERS. Even the principles of 
noly trade are to be governed by majorities ! 

Even my uncle Ro, who never owned a foot of the pro- 
perty, could not look at it without emotion. He too had 
been born there — had passed his childhood there — and loved 
the spot without a particle of the grovelling feeling of ava- 
rice. He took pleasure in remembering that our race had 
been the only owners of the soil on which he stood, and had 
that very justifiable pride which belongs to enduring respect- 
ability and social station. 

“ Well, Hugh,” he cried, after both of us had stood gazing 
at the grey walls of the good and substantial, but certainly 
not very beautiful dwelling, “ here we are, and we now may 
determine on what is next to be done. Shall we march 
down to the village, which is four, miles distant, you will 
remember, and get our breakfasts there? — shall we try one 
of your tenants? — or shall we plunge at once in medias res, 
and ask hospitality of my mother and your sister ?” 

“The last might excite suspicion, I fear, sir. Tar and 
feathers would be our mildest fate did we fall into the hands 
of the Injins.” 

“ Injins ! Why not go at once to the wigwam of Sus- 
quesus, and get out of him and Yop the history of the state 
of things. I heard them speaking of the Onondago at our 
tavern last night, and while they said he was generally 
thought to be much more than a hundred, that he was still 
like a man of eighty. That Indian is full of observation, 
and may let us into some of the secrets of his brethren.” 

“ They can at least give us the news from the family ; 
and though it might seem in the course of things for pedlars 
to visit the Nest House, it will be just as much so for them 
to halt at the wigwam.” 

This consideration decided the matter, and away we went 
towards the ravine or glen, on the side of which stood the 
primitive-looking hut that went by the name of the “ wicr. 
warn.” The house was a small cabin of logs, neat and 
warm, or cool, as the season demanded. As it was kept 
up, and was whitewashed, and occasionally furnished anew 
by the landlord — the odious creature ! he who paid for so 
many similar things in the neighbourhood— it was never 


THE REDSKINS. 


121 

unfit to be seen, though never of a very alluring, cottage- 
like character. There was a garden, and it had been pro- 
perly made that very season, the negro picking and pecking 
about it, during the summer, in a way to coax the vegeta- 
bles and fruits on a little, though I vvell knew that the regu- 
lar weedings came from an assistant at the Nest, who was 
/ ordered to give it an eye and an occasional half-day. On 
one side of the hut there was a hog-pen and a small stable 
for a cow; but on the other the trees of the virgin forest, 
which had never been disturbed in that glen, overshadowed 
the roof. This somewhat poetical arrangement was actually 
the consequence of a compromise between the tenants of the 
cabin, the negro insisting on the accessories of his rude ci- 
vilization, while the Indian required the shades of the woods 
to reconcile him to his position. Here had these two sin- 
gularly associated beings — the one deriving his descent from 
the debased races of Africa, and the other from the fierce 
j but lofty-minded aboriginal inhabitant of this continent — 
! dwelt nearly for the whole period of an ordinary human 
life. The cabin itself began to look really ancient, while 
those who dwelt in it had little altered within the memory 
of man ! Such instances of longevity, whatever theorists 
may say on the subject, are not unfrequent among either 
the blacks or the “ natives,” though probably less so among 
the last than among the first, and still less so among the 
first of the northern than of the southern sections of the re 
public. It is common to say that the great age so often 
attributed to the people of these two races is owing to igno- 
rance of the periods of their births, and that they do not 
live longer than the whites. This may be true, in the main, 
for a white man is known to have died at no great distance 
from Ravensnest, within the last five-and-twenty years, who 
numbered more than his six score of years; but aged ne- 
groes and aged Indians are nevertheless so common, when 
the smallness of their whole numbers is remembered, as to 
render the fact apparent to most of those who have seen 
much of their respective people. 

! There was no highway in the vicinity of the wigwam, for 
so the cabin was generally called, though wigwam, in the 
strict meaning of the word, it was not. As the little build- 
ing stood in the grounds of the Nest House, which contain 
VoL. I. 11 


THE REDSKINS. 


m 

two hundred acres, a bit of virgin forest included, and ex- 
clusively of the fields that belonged to the adjacent farm, it 
was approached only by foot-paths, of which several led to 
and from it, and by one narrow, winding carriage-road, 
which, in passing for miles through the grounds, had been 
/ed near the hut, in order to enable my grandmother and 
I sister, and, I dare say, my dear departed mother, while she 
lived, to make their calls in their frequent airings. By this 
sweeping road we approached the cabin. 

“ There are the two old fellows, sunning themselves this 
fine day !” exclaimed my uncle, with something like tremor 
in his voice, as we drew near enough to the hut to distin- 
guish objects. “ Hugh, I never see these men without a 
feeling of awe, as well as of affection. They were the 
friends, and one was the slave of my grandfather ; and as 
long as I can remember, have they been aged men ! They 
seem to be set up here as monuments of the past, to connect 
the generations that are gone with those that are to come.” 

“ If so, sir, they will soon be all there is of their sort. It 
really seems to me that, if things continue much longer in 
their present direction, men will begin to grow jealous and 
envious of history itself, because its actors have left de- 
scendants to participate in any little credit they may have 
gained.” 

“ Beyond all contradiction, boy, tnere is a strange per- 
version of the old and natural sentiments on this head among 
us. But you must bear in mind the fact, that of the two 
millions and a half the State contains, not half a million, 
probably, possess any of the true York blood, and can con- 
sequently feel any of the sentiments connected with the 
j birth-place and the older traditions of the very society m 
I which they live. A great deal must be attributed to the 

j facts of our condition ; though I admit those facts need not, 

and ought not to unsettle principles. But look at those two 
I old fellows ! There they are, true to the feenngs and habits 
I of their races, even after passing so long a time together in 
this hut. There squats Susquesus on a stone, idle and dis- 
daining work, with his rifle leaning against the apple-tree ; 
while Jaaf — or Yop, as I believe it is better to call him — is 
pecking about in the garden, still a slave at his work, in 
fancy at least.” 


THE REDSKINS. 123 

“ And which is the happiest, sir — the industrious old man 
or the idler?” 

“ Probably each finds most happiness in indulging his 
own early habits. The Onondago never would work, how- i 
ever, and I have heard my father say, great was his happi- 
ness when he found he was to pass the remainder of his 
days in otium cum dignitate, and without the necessity of 
making baskets.” 

“ Yop is looking at us ; had we not better go up at once 
and speak to them?” 

“ Yop may stare the most openly, but my life on it the 
Indian sees twice as much. His faculties are the best, to 
begin with ; and he is a man of extraordinary and charac- 
teristic observation. In his best days nothing ever escaped 
him. As you say, w'e will approach.” 

My uncle and myself then consulted on the expediency 
of using broken English with these two old men, of which, 
at first, we saw no necessity; but when we remembered 
that others might join us, and that our communications with 
the two might be frequent for the next few days, we changed 
our minds, and determined rigidly to observe our incog- 
nitos. 

As we came up to the door of the hut, Jaaf slowdy left his 
little garden and joined the Indian, who remained immove- 
able and unmoved on the stone which served him for a seat. 

We could see but little change in either during the five years 
of our absence, each being a perfect picture, in his way, of 
extreme but not decrepit old age in the men of his race. Of 
the two, the black — if black he could now be called, his co- 
lour being a muddy grey — was the most altered, though 
that seemed scarcely possible when I saw him last. As for 
the Trackless, or Susquesus, as he was comhionly called, his 
temperance throughout a long life did him good service, 
and his half-naked limbs and skeleton-like body, for he wore 
the summer dress of his people, appeared to be made of a 
leather long steeped in a tannin of the purest quality. His 
sinews, too, though much stiffened, seemed yet to be o-f 
whip-cord, and his whole frame a species of indurated mum- 
my that retained its vitality. The colour of the skin was 
less red than formerly, and more closely approached to that 


THE REDSKINS. 


Ui 

of the negro, as the latter now was, though perceptibly dif- 
ferent. 

“ Sago — sago,” cried my uncle, as we came quite near, 
seeing no risk in using that familiar semi-Indian salutation.* 

“ Sago, sago, dis charmin’ mornin ; in my tongue, dat might 
be guten tag^ 

“ Sago,” returned the Trackless, in his deep, guttural 
voice, while old Yop brought two lips together that resem- 
bled thick pieces of overdone beef-steak, fastened his red- 
encircled gummy eyes on each of us in turn, pouted once 
more, working his jaws as if proud of the excellent teeth they 
still held, and said nothing. As the slave of a Littlepage, h 
held pedlars as inferior beings ; for the ancient negroes ot 
New York ever identified themselves, more or less, with the 
families to which they belonged, and in which they so often 
were born. “ Sago,” repeated the Indian, slowly, courteous- 
ly, and with emphasis, after he had looked a moment longer 
at my uncle, as if he saw something about him to command 
respect. 

“ Dis ist charmin’ day, frients,” said uncle Ro, placing 
himself coolly on a log of wood that had been hauled for 
the stove, and wiping his brow. “ Vat might you calls dis 
coontry ?” 

“ Dis here?” answered Yop, not without a little contempt. 

“ Dis is York Colony ; where you come from to ask sich a 
question 

“ Charmany. Dat ist far off, but a goot coontry ; ant 
dis ist goot coontry too.” 



*The editor has often had occasion to explain the meaning of terms 
of this nature. The colonists caught a great many words from the 
Indians they first knew, and used them to all other Indians, though 
not belonging to their languages ; and these other tribes using them 
as English, a sort of limited lingua franca has grown up in the 
country that everybody understands. It is believed that “ moccasin,” 
“squaw,” “pappoose,” “sago,” “tomahawk,” “wigwam,” &c. &c., 
all belong to this class of words. There can be little doubt that the 
sohriquel of “Yankees” is derived from “ Yengeese,” the manner in ! 
which the tribes nearest to New England pronounced the word “ Eng- | 
lish.” It is to this hour a provincialism of that part of the country to | 
pronounce this word “ Eng-lish” instead of “ /ng-lish,” its conven- ^ 
tional sound. The change from “^^ng-lish” to “ Yen-geese” is very ‘ 
trifling. — Editoh. | 


tub redskins. 


125 

“ Why you leab him, den, if he be good country, eh ?” 

“ Vhy you leal Africa, canst you dell me dat ?” retorted 
uncle Ro, somewhat coolly. 

“ Nebber was dere,” growled old Yop, bringing his blub- 
ber lips together somewhat in the manner the boar works 
his jaws when it is prudent to get out of his way. “ I’m 
York-nigger born, and nebber seen no Africa; and nebber 
want to see him, nudder.” 

It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaaf belonged to a 
school by which the term of “ coloured gentleman” was never 
used. The men of his time and stamp called themselves 
“ niggers and ladies and gentlemen of that age took them 
at their word, and called them “ niggers” too; a term that 
no one of the race ever uses now, except in the way of re- 
proach, and which, by one of the singular workings of our 
very wayward and common nature, he is more apt to use 
than any other, when reproach is intended. 

My uncle paused a moment to reflect before he continued 
a discourse that had not appeared to commence under very 
flattering auspices. 

“ Who might lif in dat big stone house ?” asked uncle Ro, 

[ as soon as he thought the negro had had time to cool a 
j little. 

“ Anybody can see you no Yorker, by dat werry speech,’ 
answered Yop, not at all mollified by such a question. “ Who 
should lib dere but Gin’ral Littlepage?” 

“ Veil, I dought he wast dead, long ago.” 

“ What if he be? It ’s his house, and he lib in it; and 
ole young missus lib dere too.” 

Now, there had been three generations of generals among 
the Littlepages, counting from father to son. First, there 
had been Brigadier General Evans Littlepage, who held 
that rank in the militia, and died in service during the revo- 
lution. The next was Brigadier General Cornelius Little- 
page, who got his rank by brevet, at the close of the same 
war, in which he had actually figured as a colonel of the 
New York line. Third, and last, was my own grandfather. 
Major General Mordaunt Littlepage : he had been a cap- 
tain in his father’s regiment at the close of the same strug- 
gle, got the brevet of major at its termination, and rose to 
be a Major General of the militia, the station he held for 
11 * 


THE REDSKINS 


12G 

many years before he died. As soon as the privates had 
the power to elect their own officers, the position of a Major 
I General in the militia ceased to be respectable, and few gen- 
tlemen could be induced to serve. As might have been 
foreseen, the militia itself fell into general contempt, where 
it now is, and where it will ever remain until a different 
class of officers shall be chosen. The people can do a great 
deal, no doubt, but they cannot make a silk purse out of 
a sow’s ear.” As soon as officers from the old classes shall 
he appointed, the militia will come up ; for in no interest in 
life is it so material to have men of certain habits, and no- 
tions, and education, in authority, as in those connected with 
the military service. A great many fine speeches may be 
made, and much patriotic eulogy expended on the Intrinsic 
virtue and intelligence of the people, and divers projects en- 
tertained to make “ citizen-soldiers,” as they are called ; but 
citizens never can be, and never will be turned into soldiers 
at all, good or bad, until proper officers are placed over 
them. To return to Yop — 

“ Bray vhat might be der age of das laty dat you callet 
olt young missus?” asked my uncle. 

“ Gosh ! she nutten but gal — born sometime just a’ter ole 
French war. Remember her well ’nough when she Miss 
Dus Malbone. Young masser Mordaunt take fancy to her, 
and make her he wife.” 

“ Veil, I hopes you hafn’t any objection to der match ?” 

“ Not I ; she clobber young lady den, and she werry 
clobber young lady now.” 

And this of my venerable grandmother, who had fairly 
seen her four-score years ! 

“ Who might be der master of das big house now?” 

“ Gin’ral Littlepage, does n’t I tell ye! Masser Mor- 
daunt’s name, my young master. Sus, dere, only Injin ; he 
nebber so lucky as hab a good master. Niggers gettin’ 
scarce, dey tells me, now-a-days, in dis world!” 

“ Injins, too, I dinks ; dere ist no more redskins might be 
blenty.” 

The manner in which the Onondago raised his figure, and 
the look he fastened on my uncle, were both fine^and start- 
ling. As yet he had said nothing beyond the salutation ; 
but I could see he now intended to speak. 


THE REDSKINS. 


121 

I “ New tribe,” he said, after regarding us for half a mi- 
nute intently ; “ what you call him— -where he come from ?” 
“ Ja, ja — das ist der anti-rent redskins. Haf you seen 
i ’em. Trackless 1” 

j “ Sartain ; come to see me — face in bag — behave like 
j squaw ; poor Injin — poor warrior 1” 

“ Yees, I believes dat ist true enough. I can’t bear soch 
j Injin! — might not be soch Injin in world. Vhat you call 
I ’em, eh ?” 

j Susquesus shook his head slowly, and with dignity. 

I Then he gazed intently at my uncle ; after which he fast- 
I ened his eyes, in a similar manner on me. In this manner 
I his looks turned from one to the other for some little time, 

I when he again dropped them to the earth, calmly and in 
silence. I took out the hurdy-gurdy, and began to play a 
lively air — one that was very popular among the American 
blacks, and which, I am sorry to say, is getting to be not 
I less so among the whites. No visible effect was produced 
I on Susquesus, unless a slight shade of contempt was visible 
j on his dark features. With Jaaf, however, it was very dif- 
ferent. Old as he was, I could see a certain nervous twitch- 
: ing of the lower limbs, which indicated that the old fellow 

actually felt some disposition to dance. It soon passed 
away, though his grim, hard, wrinkled, dusky, grey coun- 
tenance continued to gleam with a sort of dull pleasure for 
some time. There was nothing surprising in this, the indif- 
ference of the Indian to melody being almost as marked as 
the negro’s sensitiveness to its power. 

It was not to be expected that men so aged would be dis- 
posed to talk much. The Onondago had ever been a silent 
man ; dignity and gravity of character uniting with pru- 
dence to render him so. But Jaaf was constitutionally gar- 
j rulous, though length of days had necessarily much dimi- 
' nished the propensity. At that moment a fit of thoughtful 
and melancholy silence came over my uncle, too, and all 
four of us continued brooding on our own reflections for two 
or three minutes after I had ceased to play. Presently the 
even, smooth approach of carriage-wheels was heard, and 
a light, summer vehicle that was an old acquaintance, came 
whirling round the stable, and drew up within ten feet of 
the spot where we were all seated. 


THE REDSKINS. 


128 

My heart was in my mouth, at this unexpected interrup- 
tion, and I could perceive that my uncle was scarcely less | 
affected. Amid the flowing and pretty drapery of summer ^ 
shawls, and the other ornaments of the female toilet, were 
four youthful and sunny faces, and one venerable with 
years. In a word, my grandmother, my sister, and my 
uncle’s two other wards, and Mary Warren, were in the 
carriage ; yes, the pretty, gentle, timid, yet spirited and 
intelligent daughter of the rector was of the party, and 
seemingly quite at home and at her ease, as one among 
friends. She was the first to speak even, though it was in j 
a low, quiet voice, addressed to my sister, and in words that 
appeared extorted by surprise. 

“ There are the very two pedlars of whom I told you, 
Martha,” she said, “ and now you may hear the flute well 
played.” 

“I doubt if he can play better than Hugh,” was my dear 
sister’s answer. “But we’ll have some of his music, if it | 
be only to remind us of him who is so far away.” I 

“ The music we can and will have, my child,” cried my I 
grandmother, cheerfully ; “ though that is not wanted to i 
remind us of our absent boy. Good morrow^ Susquesus ; | 

I hope this fine day agrees with you.” 

“ Sago,” returned the Indian, making a dignified and 
even graceful forward gesture with one arm, though he did 
not rise. “ Weadder good — Great Spirit good, dat reason. | 
How squaws do?” ! 

“ We are all well, I thank you. Trackless. Good mor- 
row, Jaaf; how do you do, this fine morning?” 

Yop, or Jaap, or Jaaf, rose tottering, made a low obei- 
sance, and then answered in the semi-respectful, semi-fami- 
liar manner of an old, confidential family servant, as the 
last existed among our fathers: 

“ T’ank ’ee, Miss Dus, wid all my heart,” he answered. 
“Pretty well to-day; but ole Sus, he fail, and grow ol’er 
and ol’er desp’ate fast !” 

Now, of the two, the Indian was much the finest relic of 
human powers, though he was less uneasy and more sta- 
tionary than the black. But the propensity to see the mote 
in the eye of his friend, while he forgot the beam in his 
own, wa.s a long-established and well-known weakness of 


THE REDSKINS. 


129 

Jaaf, and its present exhibition caused everybody to smile. 
I was delighted with the beaming, laughing eyes of Mary 
Warren in particular, though she said nothing. 

“ I cannot say I agree with you, Jaaf,” returned my 
smiling grandmother. “ The Trackless bears his years 
surprisingly ; and I think I have not seen him look better 
this many a day than he is looking this morning. We are 
none of us as young as we were when we first became ac- 
quainted, Jaaf — which is now near, if not quite, three-score 
years ago.” 

“ You nuttin’ but gal, nudder,” growled the negro. “ Ole 
Sus be raal ole fellow ; but Miss Dus and Masser Mordaunt, 
dey get married only tudder day. Why dat was a’ ter de 
revylooshen !” 

“ It was, indeed,” replied the venerable woman, with a 
touch of melancholy in her tones ; “ but the revolution took 
place many, many a long year since !” 

“ Well, now, I be surprise. Miss Dus ! How you call 
dat so long, when he only be tudder day?” retorted the 
pertinacious negro, who began to grow crusty, and to speak 
in a short, spiteful way, as if displeased by hearing that to 
which he could not assent. “ Masser Corny was little ole, 
p’r’aps, if he lib, but all de rest ob you nuttin’ but children. 
Tell me one t’ing. Miss Dus, be it true dey ’s got a town at 
Satanstoe ?” 

“ An attempt was made, a few years since, to turn the 
whole country into towns, and, among other places, the 
I Neck ; but I believe it will never be anything more than a 
I capital farm.” 

I “ So besser. Dat good land, I tell you ! One acre down 
; elere wort’ more dan twenty acre up here.” 

! “ My grandson would not be pleased to hear you say 

i that, Jaaf.” 

i “ Who your grandson. Miss Dus. Remember you hab 
: little baby tudder day ; but baby can’t hab baby.” 

I “ Ah, Jaaf, my old friend, my babies have long since 
! been men and women, and are drawing on to old age. One, 
and he was my first born, is gone before us to a better 
I world, and his boy is now your young master. This young 
lady, that is seated opposite to me, is the sister of that young 


THE REDSKINS. 


180 

master, and she would be grieved to think you have forgot* | 
ten her.” 

Jaaf laboured under the difficulty so common to old age; : 
he was forgetful of things of more recent date, while he re- | 
membered those which had occurred a century ago ! The j 
memory is a tablet that partakes of the peculiarity of all 
our opinions and habits. In youth it is easily impressed, 
and the images then engraved on it are distinct, deep and 
lasting, while those that succeed become crowded, and take j 
less root, from the circumstance of finding the ground ; 

already occupied. In the present instance, the age was so j 

great that the change was really startling, the old negro’s | 

recollections occasionally coming on the mind like a voice | 

from the grave. As for the Indian, as I afterwards ascer- j 
tained, he was better preserved in all respects than the | 
black ; his great temperance in youth, freedom from labour, ! 
exercise in the open air, united to the comforts and abun- j 
dance of semi-civilized habits, that had now lasted for near 1 
a century, contributing to preserve both mind and body. i 
As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in 
boyhood of his history. j 

There had ever been a mystery about the life of the Onon- j 
dago. If any one of our set had ever been acquainted with | 
the facts, it was Andries Coejemans, a half-uncle of my dear 
grandmother, a person who has been known among us by 
the sobriquet of the Chainbearer. My grandmother had 
told me that “ uncle Chainbearer,” as we all called the old 
relative, did know all about Susquesus, in his time — the 
reason why he had left his tribe, and become a hunter, and 
warrior, and runner among the pale-faces — and that he had 
always said the particulars did his red friend great credit, 
but that he would reveal it no further. So great, however, 
was uncle Chainbearer’s reputation for integrity, that such 
an opinion was sufficient to procure for the Onondago the 
fullest confidence of the whole connection, and the experi- 
ence of four-score years and ten had proved that this confi- 
dence was well placed. Some imputed the sort of exile in i 
which the old man had so long lived to love ; others to war ; | 

and others, again, to the consequences of those fierce per- 
sonal feuds that are known to occur among men in the sa* j 


THE REDSKINS. 


13i 

vage state. But all was just as much a mystery and matter | 
of conjecture, now we were drawing near to the middle of 
the nineteenth century, as it had been when our forefathers 
were receding from the middle of the eighteenth ! To re- 
turn to the negro. 

Although Jaaf had momentarily forgotten me, and quite 
forgotten my parents, he remembered my sister, who was 
in the habit of seeing him so often. In what manner he 
connected her with the family, it is not easy to say ; but he 
knew her not only by sight, but by name, and, as one might 
say, by blood. 

“ Yes, yes,” cried the old fellow, a little eagerly, ‘ champ- 
ing' his thick lips together, somewhat as an alligator snaps 
his jaws, “ yes, I knows Miss Patty, of course. Miss Patty 
is werry han’some, and grows han’somer and han’somer 
ebbery time I sees her — yah, yah, yah !” The laugh of 
that old negro sounded startling and unnatural, yet there 
was something of the joyous in it, after all, like every ne- 
gro’s laugh. “ Yah, yah, yah ! Yes, Miss Patty won’erful 
han’some, and werry like Miss Dus. I s’pose, now. Miss 
Patty wast born about ’e time dat Gin’ral Washington die.” 

As this was a good deal more than doubling my sister’s 
age, it produced a common laugh among the light-hearted 
girls in the carriage. A gleam of intelligence that almost 
amounted to a smile also shot athwart the countenance of 
the Onondago, while the muscles of his face worked, but he 
said nothing. I had reason to know afterw'ards that the 
tablet of his memory retained its records better. 

“ What friends have you with you to-day^ Jaaf,” inquired 
my grandmother, inclining her head towards us pedlars 
graciously, at the same time; a salutation that my uncle 
Ro and myself rose hastily to acknowledge. 

As for myself, I own honestly that I could have jumped 
into the vehicle and kissed my dear grandmother’s still good- 
looking but colourless cheeks, and hugged Patt, and possi- 
bly some of the others, to my heart. IJncle Ro had more 
command of himself; though I could see that the sound of 
his venerable parent’s voice, in which the tremour was 
barely perceptible, was near overcoming him. 

Dese be pedlar, ma’am, I do s’pose,” answered the black. 

“ Dey ’s got box wid somet’in’ in him, and dey ’s got new 


THE REDSKINS, 


132 

kind of fiddle. Come, young man, gib Miss Dus a tune— ^ 
a libely one ; sich as make an ole nigger dance.” 

I drew round the hurdy-gurdy, and was beginning to 
flourish away, when a gentle, sweet voice, raised a little 
louder than usual by eagerness, interrupted me. 

“Oh ! not that thing, not that; the flute, the flute !” ex- 
claimed Mary Warren, blushing to the eyes at her own bold- 
ness, the instant she saw that she was heard, and that I was 
about to comply. 

I It is hardly necessary to say that I bowed respectfully, 

j laid down the hurdy-gurdy, drew the flute from my pocket, 

and, after a few flourishes, commenced playing one of the 
newest airs, or melodies, from a favourite opera. I saw the 
colour rush into Martha’s cheeks the moment I had got 
through a bar or two, and the start she gave satisfied me 
that the dear girl remembered her brother’s flute. I had 
played oh that very instrument ever since I was sixteen, but 
I had made an immense progress in the art during the five 
years just passed in Europe. Masters at Naples, Paris, Vi- 
enna and London had done a great deal for me ; and I trust 
I shall not be thought vain if I add, that nature had done 
something, too. My excellent grandmother listened in pro- 
found attention, and all four of the girls were enchanted. 

“ That music is worthy of being heard in a room,” ob 
served the former, as soon as I concluded the air; “and 
we shall hope to hear it this evening, at the Nest House, if 
you remain anywhere near us. In the mean time, we must 
pursue our airing.” 

As my grandmother spoke she leaned forward, and ex- 
tended her hand to me, with a benevolent smile. I ad- 
vanced, received the dollar that was offered, and, unable to 
command my feelings, raised the hand to my lips, respect- 
fully but with fervour. Had Martha’s face Leen near me, 
it would have suffered also. I suppose there was nothincr 
in this respectful salutation that struck the spectators as very 
much out of the way, foreigners having foreign customs, 
but I saw a flush in my venerable grandmother’s cheek, as 
the carriage moved off. She had noted the warmth of the 
manner. My uncle had turned away, I dare say to conceal 
the tears that started to his eyes, and Jaaf followed towards 
the door of the hut, whither my uncle moved, in order to 




I THE REDSKINS. 133 

j do the honours of the place. This left me quite alone with 
the Indian. 

“ Why no kiss face of grandmodder 1” asked the Onon- 
dago, coolly and quietly. 

Had a clap of thunder broken over my head, I could not 
have been more astonished ! 'The disguise that had deceived 
my nearest relations — that had baffled Seneca Newcome, 
and had set at naught even his sister Opportunity — had • 
failed to conceal me from that Indian, whose faculties might 
be supposed to have been numbed with age ! 

“ Is it possible that you know me, Susquesus !” I ex- 
claimed, signing towards the negro at the same time, by 
way of caution ; “ that you remember me, at all ! I should 
have thought this wig, these clothes, would have concealed 
me.” 

“ Sartain,” answered the aged Indian, calmly. “ Know 
young chief soon as see him ; know fader — know raudder ; 
know gran’ fader, gran’mudder — great-gran’fader; his fader, 
too ,* know ffll. Why forget young chief?” 

“ Did you know me before I kissed my grandmother’s 
hand, or only by that act ? 

“ Know as soon as see him. What eyes good for, if 
don’t know ? Know uncle, dere, sartain ; welcome home !” 

“ But you will not let others know us, too. Trackless ? 
We have always been friends, I hope?” 

“ Be sure, friends. Why ole eagle, wid white head, strike 
yotng pigeon ? Nebber hatchet in ’e path between Sus- 
quesus and any of de tribe of Ravensnest. Too ole to dig 
him up now.” 

“ There are good reasons why my uncle and myself 
should not be known for a few days. Perhaps you have 
heard something of the trouble that has grown up between 
the landlords and the tenants, in the land?” 

“What dat trouble?” 

“ The tenants are tired of paying rent, and wish to make 
a new bargain, by which they can become owners of the 
/arms on which they live.” 

A grim light played upon the swarthy countenance of the 
Indian : his lips moved, but he uttered nothing aloud. 

“ Have you heard anything of this, Susquesus?” 

VoL. I.— 12 


THE REDSKINS. 


134 

“ Little bird sing sich song in my ear — didn’t like to 
hear it.” 

“ And of Indians who are moving up and down the coun- 
try, armed with rifles and dressed in calico ?” 

“ What tribe, dem Injin,” asked the Trackless, with a 
quickness and a fire I did not think it possible for him to 
retain. “What ’ey do, marchin’ ’bout? — on war-path, 
eh?” 

“ In one sense they may be said to be so. They belong 
to the anti-rent tribe ; do you know such a nation?” 

“ Poor Injin dat, b’lieve. Why come so late? — why no 
come when ’e foot of Susquesus light as feather of bird ? — 
why stay away till pale-faces plentier dan leaf on tree, or 
snow in air? Hundred year ago, when dat oak little, sich 
Injin might be good ; now, he good for nuttin’.” 

“ But you will keep our secret, Sus? — wdll not even tell 
the negro who we are ?” 

The Trackless simply nodded his head in assent. After 
this he seemed to me to sink back in a sort of brooding le- 
thargy, as if indisposed to pursue the subject. I left him to 
go to my uncle, in order to relate w'hat had just passed. 
Mr. Roger Littlepage was as much astonished as I had been 
myself, at hearing that one so aged should have detected 
us through disguises that had deceived our nearest of kin. 
But the quiet penetration and close observation of the man 
had long been remarkable. As' his good faith was of proof, 
however, neither felt any serious apprehension of being be- 
trayed, as soon as he had a moment for reflection. 


THE REDSKINS. 


135 


CHAPTER IX. 


« He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, 

A cottage of gentility 5 

And the devil did grin, for his darling sin 

Is the pride that apes huraility.” 

Devil’s Thoughts* 

It was now necessary to determine what course we ought 
next to pursue. It might appear presuming in men of our 
pursuits to go to the Nest before the appointed time ; and 
did we proceed on to the village, we should have the dis- 
tance between the two places to walk over twice, carrying 
our instruments and jewel-box. After a short consultation, 
it was decided to visit the nearest dwellings, and to remain 
as near my own house as was practicable, making an ar- 
rangement to sleep somewhere in its immediate vicinity. 
Could we trust any one with our secret, our fare would pro- 
bably be all the better; but my uncle thought it most pru- 
dent to maintain a strict incognito until he had ascertained 
the true state of things in the town. 

We took leave of the Indian ’and the negro, therefore, 
promising to visit them again in the course of that or the 
succeeding day, and followed the path that led to the farm- 
house. It was our opinion that we might, at least, expect 
to meet with friends in the occupants of the home farm. 
The same family had been retained in possession there for 
three generations, and being hired to manage the husbandry 
and to take care of the dairy, there was not the same reason 
for the disaffection, that w'as said so generally to exist among 
the tenantry, prevailing among them. The name of this 
family was Miller, and it consisted of the two heads and 
some six or seven children, most of the latter being still 
quite young. 

“Tom Miller was a trusty lad, when I knew much of 
him,” said my uncle, as we drew near to the barn, in which 
we saw the party mentioned, at work; “and he is said to 
have behaved well in one or two alarms they have had at 


1 


136 THE REDSKINS. 

the Nest, this summer ; still, it may be wiser not to let even 
him into our secret as yet.” 

“ I am quite of your mind, sir,” I answered ; “ for who 
knows that he has not just as strong a desire as any of them 
to own the farm on which he lives? He is the grandson 
of the man who cleared it from the forest, and has much the 
same title as the rest of them.” 

“ Very true ; and why should not that give him just as 
good a right to claim an interest in the farm, beyond that 
he has got under his contract to work it, as if he held a 
lease? He who holds a lease gets no right beyond his bar- 
gain ; nor does this man. The one is paid for his labour 
by the excess of his receipts over the amount of his annual 
rent, while the other is paid partly in what he raises, and 
partly in wages. In principle there is no difference what- 
ever, not a particle ; yet I question if the veriest demagogue 
in the State would venture to say that the man, or the family, 
which works a farm for hire, even for a hundred years, gets 
the smallest right to say he shall not quit it, if its owner 
please, as soon as his term of service is up !” 

“ ‘ The love of money is the root of all evil and when 
that feeling is uppermost, one can never tell what a man 
will do. The bribe of a good farm, obtained for nothing, or 
for an insignificant price, is sufficient to upset the morality 
of even Tom Miller.” 

“ You arc right, Hugh ; and here is one of the points in 
which our political men betray the cloven foot. They write, 
and proclaim, and make speeches, as if the anti-rent trou- 
bles grew out of the durable lease system solely, whereas 
we all know that it is extended to all descriptions of obliga- 
tions given for the occupancy of land — life leases, leases for 
a term of years, articles for deeds, and bonds and mort- 
gages. It is a wide-spread, though not yet universal at- 
tempt of those who have the least claim to the possession 
of real estate, to obtain the entire right, and that by agen- 
cies that neither the law nor good morals will justify. 
It is no new expedient for partizans to place en evidence 
no more of their principles and intentions than suits their 
purposes. But, here we are within ear-shot, and must re- 
sor. to the High Dutch. Guten tag, guten tag,'' continued 
uncle Ro, dropping easily into the broken English of our 


THE REDSKINS 


137 

masquerade, as we walked into the barn, where Miller, two 
of his older boys, and a couple of hired men were at work, 
grinding scythes and preparing for the approaching hay- 
harvest. “ It might be warm day, dis fine mornin’.” 

“ Good day, good day,” cried Miller, hastily, and glancing 
his eye a little curiously at our equipments. “ What hava 
you got in your box — essences I” 

“ Nein ; vatches and drinkets;” setting down the box 
and opening it at once, for the inspection of all present. 
“ Von’t you burchase a goot vatch, dis bleasant mornin’ ?” 

“ Be they ra-al gold ?” asked Miller, a little doubtingly. 
“And all them chains and rings, be they gold too?” 

“ Not true golt ; nein, nein, I might not say dat. But 
goot enough golt for blain folks, like you and me.” 

“ Them things would never do for the grand quality over 
at the big house !” cried one of the labourers who was un- 
known to me, but whose name I soon ascertained was Joshua 
Brigham, and who spoke with a sort of malicious sneer that 
at once betrayed he was no friend. “ You mean ’em for 
poor folks, I s’pose?” 

“ I means dem for any bodies dat will pay deir money 
for ’em,” answered my uncle. “ Vould you like a vatch ?” 

“ That would I ; and a farm, too, if I could get ’em 
cheap,” answered Brigham, with a sneer he did not attempt 
to conceal. “How do you sell farms to-day?” 

“ I haf got no farms; I sells drinkets and vatches, but I 
doesn’t sell farms. Vhat I haf got I vill sell, but I cannot 
sells vhat I haf not got.” 

“ Oh ! you ’ll get all you want if you ’ll stay long enough 
in this country ! This is a free land, and just the place for 
a poor man ; or it will be, as soon as we get all the lords 
and aristocrats out of it.” 

This was the first time I had ever heard this political 
blarney with my own ears, though I had understood it was 
often used by those who wish to give to their own particular 
envy and covetousness a grand and sounding air. 

“ Veil, I haf hoards dat in America dere might not be any 
noples ant aristocrats,” put in my uncle, with an appear- 
ance of beautiful simplicity ; “ and dat dere ist not ein graaf 
in der whole coontry.” 

12 * 


138 THE REDSKINS. 

“ Oh ! there ’s all sorts of folks here, just as they are to 
be found elsewhere,” cried Miller, seating himself coolly on 
the end of the grindstone-frame, to open and look into the 
mysteries of one of the watches. “Now, Josh Brigham, 
here, calls all that’s above him in the world aristocrats, but 
he doesn’t call all that ’s below him his equals.” 

I liked that speech ; and I liked the cool, decided way 
in which it was uttered. It denoted, in its spirit, a man who 
saw things as they are, and who was not afraid to say what 
he thought about them. My uncle Ro was surprised, and 
that agreeably, too, and he turned to Miller to pursue the 
discourse. 

“ Den dere might not be any nopility in America, after 
all ?” he asked, inquiringly. 

“Yes, there’s plenty of such lords as Josh here, who 
want to be uppermost so plaguily that they don’t stop to 
♦ouch all the rounds of the ladder. I tell him, friend, he 
wants to get on too fast, and that he mustn’t set up for a 
gentleman before he knows how to behave himself.” 

Josh looked a little abashed at a rebuke that came from 
one of his own class, and which he must have felt, in se- 
cret, was merited. But the demon was ^ work in him, and 
he had persuaded himself that he was me champion of a 
quality as sacred as liberty, when, in fact, he was simply 
and obviously doing neither more nor less than breaking 
the tenth commandment. He did not like to give up, while 
he skirmished with Miller, as the dog that has been beaten 
already two or three times growls over a bone at the ap- 
proach of his conqueror. 

“ Well, thank heaven,” he cried, “ I have got some spirit 
in my body.” 

“ That ’s very true, Joshua,” answered Miller, laying 
down one watch and taking up another ,* “ but it happens to 
be an evil spirit.” 

“ Now, here ’s them Littlepages ; what makes them bet- 
ter than other folks'?” 

“ You had better let the Littlepages alone, Joshua, seein’ 
they ’re a family that you know nothing at all about.” 

“ I don’t want to know them ; though I do happen to 
know all I want to know. I despise ’em.” 


« THE REDSKINS. 139 

“ No you don’t, Joshy, my boy ; nobody despises folks 
they talk so spitefully about. What ’s the price of this here 
watch, friend?” 

“Four dollars,” said my uncle, eagerly, falling lower 
than was prudent, in his desire to reward Miller for his good 
feeling and sound sentiments. “ Ja, ja — you might haf das 
vatch for four dollars.” 

“ I ’m afraid it isn’t good for anything,” returned Miller, 
feeling the distrust that was natural at hearing a price so 
low. “ Let ’s have another look at its inside.” 

No man, probably, ever bought a watch without looking 
into its works with an air of great intelligence, though none 
but a mechanician is any wiser for his survey. Tom Miller 
acted on this principle, for the good looks of the machine 
he held in his hand, and the four dollars, tempted him sorely 
It had its effect, too, on the turbulent and envious Joshua, 
who seemed to understand himself very well in a bargain. 
Neither of the men had supposed the watches to be of gold, 
for though the metal that is in a watch does not amount to 
a great deal, it is usually of more value than all that was 
asked for the “ article” now under examination. In point 
of fact, my uncle had this very watch “ invoiced to him” at 
twice the price hq||iow put it at. 

“ And what do you ask for this ?” demanded Joshua, 
taking up another watch of very similar looks and of equal 
value to the one that Miller still retained open in his hand. 
“ Won’t you let this go for three dollars?” 

“ No ; der brice of dat is effery cent of forty dollars,” an- 
swered uncle Ro, stubbornly. 

“ The two men now looked at the pedlar in surprise. 
Miller took the watch from his hired man, examined it at- 
tentively, compared it with the other, and then demanded 
its price anew. 

“ You might haf eider of dem vatches for four dollars,” 
returned my uncle, as I thought, incautiously. 

This occasioned a new surprise, though Brigham fortu- 
nately referred the difference to a mistake. 

“ Oh !” he said, “ I understood you to say Jorfy dollars. 
Four dollars is a different matter.” 

“ Josh,” interrupted the more observant and cooler-headed 
Miller, “it is high time, now, you and Peter go and look 


I 

i 


140 THE REDSKINS. 

a’ter them sheep. The conch will soon be blowing for dim 
ner. If you want a trade, you can have one when you get 
back.” 

Notwithstanding the plainness of his appearance and lan- 
guage, Tom Miller was captain of his own company. He 
gave this order quietly, and in his usual familiar way, but 
it was obviously to be obeyed without a remonstrance. In 
a minute the two hired men were off in company, leaving 
no one behind in the barn but Miller, his sons, and us two. I 
I could see there was a motive for all this, but did not un- ! 
derstand it. j 

“ Now he's gone,” continued Tom quietly, but laying an 
emphasis that sufficiently explained his meaning, “perhaps 
you’ll let me know the true price of this watch. I’ve a 
mind for it, and may be we can agree.” 

“ Four dollars,” answered my uncle, distinctly. “ I haf 
said you might haf it for dat money, and vhat I haf said 
once might always be.” 

“ I will take it, then. I almost wish you had asked eight, ' 
though four dollars saved is suthin’ for a poor man. It’s 
so plaguy cheap I’m a little afraid on ’t ; but I’ll ventur’. 
There; there’s your money, and in hard cash.” 

“ Dank you, sir. Won’t das ladies choose to look at my 
drinketsi” ^ 

“Oh! if you want to deal with ladies who buy chains 
and rings, the Nest blouse is the place. My woman wouldn’t 
know what to do with sich things, and don’t set herself up 
for a fine lady at all. That chap who has just gone for the 
sheep is the only great man we have about this farm.” 

“ Ja, ja ; he ist a nople in a dirty shirt : ja, ja ; why hast 
he dem pig feelin’s ?” 

“ I believe you have named them just as they ought to 
be, 'pig's feelin’s. It ’s because he wishes to thrust his own 
snout all over the trough, and is mad when he finds any- 
body else’s in the way. We’re getting to have plenty of 
such fellows up and down the country, and an Uiicomforta- 
ble time they give us. Boys, I do believe it will turn out 
a’ter all, that Josh is an Injin !” 

“ I know he is,” answered the oldest of the two sons, a 
lad of nineteen ; “ where else should he be so much of 
nights and Sundays, but at their trainin’s 1 — and what was 


THE REDSKINS. 141 

the meanin’ of the calico bundle I saw under his arm a 
month ago, as I told you on at the time?” 

“ If I find it out to be as you say, Harry, he shall tramp | 
oif of this farm. I’ll have no Injins here!” | 

“ Veil I dought I dit see an olt Injin in a hut up yonder } 
ast by der woots 1” put in my uncle, innocently. 

“ Oh 1 that is Susquesus, an Onondago ; he is a true In- 
jin, and a gentleman ; but we have a parcel of the mock 
gentry about, who are a pest and an eye-sore to every ho- 
nest man in the country. Half on ’em are nothing but 
thieves in mock Injin dresses. The law is ag’in ’em, right 
is ag’in ’em, and every true friend of liberty in the country 
ought to be ag’in ’em.” 

“ Vhat ist der matter in dis coontry? I hear in Europe 
how America ist a free lant, ant how efery man hast his 
rights ; but since I got here dey do nothin’ but talk of ba- 
rons, and noples, and tenants, and arisdograts, and all der 
bat dings I might leaf behint me, in der olt worlt.’' 

“ The plain matter is, friend, that they who have got lit- 
tle, envy them that ’« got much ; and the struggle is to see 
which is the strongest. On the one side is the law, and 
right, and bargains, and contracts ; and on the other thou- 
sands — not of dollars, but of men. Thousands of voters ; 
d’ ye understand ?” 

“ Ja, ja — I oonderstands ; dat ist easy enough. But vhy 
do dey dalk so much of noples and arisdograts? — ist der 
noples and arisdograts in America?” 

“ Well, I don’t much understand the natur’ of sich things , 
there sartainly is a difference in men, and a difference in 
their fortun’s, and edications, and such sort of things.” 

I “ Und der law, den, favours der rich man at der cost of 
I der poor, in America, too, does it? Und you haf arisdo- 

i grats who might not pay taxes, and who holt all der offices, 

and get all der pooblic money, and who ist petter pefore de 
law, in all dings, dan ast dem dat be not arisdograts? Is 
it so?” 

Miller laughed outright, and shook his head at this ques- 
tion, continuing to examine the trinkets the whole time. 

“ No, no, my friend, we’ve not much of that, in this part 
of the world, either. Rich men get very few offices, to be- 
gin with ; for it ’s an argooment in favour of a man for an 


THE REDSKINS 


142 

office, that he ’s poor, and wants it. Folks don’t so much 
ask who the office wants, as who wants the office. Then, 
as for taxes, there isn’t much respect paid to the rich, on 
that score. Young ’Squire Littlepage pays the tax on this 
farm directly himself, and it ’s assessed half as high ag’in, 
all things considered, as any other farm on his estate.” 

“ But dat ist not right.” 

“ Right ! Who says it is? — or who thinks there is any- 
thing right about assessments, anywhere? I have heard 
assessors, with my own ears, use such words as these : — 
‘ Sich a man is rich, and can afford to pay,’ and ‘sich a 
man is poor, and it will come hard on him.’ Oh ! they 
kiver up dishonesty, now-a-days, under all sorts of argoo- 
ments,” 

“ But der law ; der rich might haf der law on deir side, 
surely?” 

“ In what way, I should like to know? Juries be every- 
thing, and juries will go accordin’ to their feelin’s, as well 
as other men. I ’ve seen the things with my own eyes. 
The county pays just enough a-day to make poor men like to 
be on juries, and they never fail to attend, while them that 
can pay their fines stay aw'ay, and so leave the law pretty 
much in the hands of one party. No rich man gains his 
cause, unless his case is so strong it can’t be Helped.” 

I had heard this before, there being a very general com- 
plaint throughout the country of the practical abuses con- 
nected with the jury system. I have heard intelligent law- 
yers complain, that whenever a cause of any in^terest is 
to be tried, the first question asked is not “ what are the 
merits?” “which has the law and the facts on his side?” 
but “who is likely to be on the jury?” — thus obviously 
placing the composition of the jury before either law or evi- 
dence. Systems may have a very fair appearance on paper 
and as theories, that are execrable in practice. As for ju- 
ries, I believe the better opinion of the intelligent of all coun- 
tries is, that while they are a capital contrivance to resist 
the abuse of power in narrow governments, in governments 
of a broad constituency they have the effect, which might 
easily be seen, of placing the control of the law in the 
hands of those who would be most apt to abuse it ; since it 
is adding to, instead of withstanding and resisting the con- 


TIIE REDSKINS. 


143 


trolling authority of the State, from which, in a popular go- 
vernment, most of the abuses must unavoidably proceed. 

As for my uncle Ro, he was disposed to pursue the sub- 
ject with Miller, who turned out to be a discreet and con- 
scientious man. After a very short pause, as if to reflect 
on what had been said, he resumed the discourse. 

“ Vhat, den, makes arisdograts in dis country ?” asked 
my uncle. 

“ Wa-a-l” — no man but an American of New England 
descent, as was the case with Miller, can give this word its 
attic sound — “Wa-a-l, it’s hard to say. I hear a great 
deal about aristocrats, and I read a great deal about aristo- 
crats, in this country, and I know that most folks look upon 
them as hateful, but I’m by no means sartain 1 know what 
an aristocrat is. Do you happen to know anything about 
it, friend ?” 

“ Ja, ja? an arisdograt ist one of a few men dat hast all 
de power of de government in deir own hands.” 

“ King ! That isn’t what we think an aristocrat in this 
part of the world. Why, we call them critturs here dimi- 
GOGUEs I Now, young ’Squire Littlepage, who owns the 
Nest House, over yonder, and who is owner of all this 
estate, far and near, is what we call an aristocrat, and he 
hasn’t power enough to be named town clerk, much less to 
anything considerable, or what is worth having.” 

“ How can he be an arisdograt, den ?” 

“ How, sure enough, if your account be true ! I tell you 
’tis the dimigogues that be the aristocrats of America. Why, 
Josh Brigham, who has just gone for the sheep, can get 
more votes for any office in the country than young Little- 
page !” 

“ Berhaps dis young Littlebage ist a pat yoong man ?” 

“ Not he; he’s as good as any on ’em, and better than 
most. Besides, if he was as wicked as Lucifer, the folks 
of the country don’t know anything about it, sin’ he ’s be’n 
away ever sin’ he has be’n a man.” 

“ Vhy, den, gan’t he haf as many votes as dat poor, ig- 
norant fellow might haf? — das ist ott.” 

“ It is odd, but it ’s true as gospel. Why, it may not be 
BO easy to tell. Many men, many minds, you know. Some 
folks don’t like him because he lives in a big house ; some 


THE REDSKINS. 


44 

hate him because they think he is better off than the}’ are 
themselves; others mistrust him because he wears a fine 
coat; and some pretend to laugh at him. because he got his 
property from his father, and grandlher, and so on, and 
didn’t make it himself. Accordin’ to some folks’ notions, 
now-a-days, a man ought to enj’y only the property he 
heaps together himself.” 

“ If dis be so, your Herr Littlebage ist no arisdograt.” 

“ Wa-a-1, that isn’t the idee, hereaway. We have had a 
great many meetin’s, latterly, about the right of the people 
to their farms ; and there has been a good deal of talk at 
them meetin’s consarnin’ aristocracy and feudal tenors ; do 
you know what a feudal tenor is, too ?” j 

“ Ja ; dere ist moch of dat in Teutchland — in mine coon- j 
try. It ist not ferry easy to explain it in a few vords, but i 
der brincipal ding ist dat der vassal owes a serfice to hist 
lort. In de olten dimes dis serfice vast military, und dere 
ist someding of dat now. It ist de noples who owe der feu- 
dal serfice, brincipally, in mine coontry, and dey owes it to 
de kings und brinces.” 

“ And don’t you call giving a chicken for rent feudal ser- 
vice, m Germany ?” 

Uncle Ro and I laughed, in spite of our efforts to the con- 
trary, there being a bathos in this question that was su- 
premely ridiculous. Curbing his merriment, however, as 
soon as he could, my uncle answered the question. 

“ If der landlordt hast a right to coome and dake as many 
chickens as he bleases,'und ast often ast he bleases, den dat 
wouldt look like a feudal right ; but if de lease says dat so 
many chickens moost be paid a-year, for der rent, vhy dat 
ist all der same as baying so much moneys ; und it might 
be easier for der tenant to bay in chicken ast it might be to 
bay in der silver. Vhen a man canst bay his debts in vhat 
he makes himself, he ist ferry interpentent.” 

“ It does seem so, I vow ! Yet there ’s folks about here, 
and some at Albany, that call it feudal for a man to have 
to carry a pair of fowls to the landlord’s office, and the land- 
lord an aristocrat for asking it !” 

“ But der man canst sent a poy, or a gal, or a nigger, 
wid his fowls, if he bleases 1” 

“ Sartain ; all that i§ asked is that the fowls should come. 


i. 


THE REDSKINS. 


145 

“ Und vhen der batroon might owe hist tailor, or hist 
shoemaker, must he not go to hist shop, or find him and 
bay him vhal he ow’es, or be suet for der debt?” 

“ That’s true, too; boys, put me in mind of telling that 
to Josh, this evening. Yes, the greatest landlord in the 
land must hunt up his creditor, or be sued, all the same as 
the lowest tenant.” 

“ Und he most bay in a partic’lar ding; he most bay in 
golt or silver?” 

‘•True; lawful tender is as good for one as ’tis for 
t’ other.” 

“ Und if your Herr Littlebage signs a baper agreein’ to 
gif der apples from dat orchart to somebody on his landts, 
most he send or carry der apples, too?” 

“ To be sure ; that would be the bargain.” 

“ Und he most carry der ferry apples dat grows on dem 
ferry drees, might it not be so?” 

“ All true as gospel. If a man contracts to sell the ap- 
ples of one orchard, he can’t put off the purchaser with the 
apples of another.” 

“ Und der law ist der same for one ast for anudder, in 
dese t’ings ?” 

“ There is no difference ; and there should be none.” 

“ Und der balroons und der landlordts wants to haf der 
law changet, so dat dey may be excuset from baying der 
debts accordin’ to der bargains, und to gif dem atfantages 
over der poor tenants?” 

I never heard anything of the sort, and don’t believe 
they want any such change.” 

“ Of vhat, den, dost der beople complain?” 

“ Of having to pay rent at all ; they think the landlords 
ought to be made to sell their fiarms, or give them away. 
Some stand out for the last.” 

“ But der landlordts don’t vant to sell deir farms ; und dey 
might not be made to sell vhat ist deir own, and vhat dey 
don’t vant to sell, any more dan der tenants might be made 
to sell deir hogs and deir sheep, vhen dey don’t vant to sell 
dem.” 

“ It does seem so, boys, as I’ve told the neighbours, all 
tilono-. But I’ll tell this Dutchman all about it. Some folks 
VoL. I.— 13 


THE REDSKINS. 


I 146 

I want the State to look a’ter the title of young Littlepage, 

I pretending he has no title.” 

I “ But der State wilt do dat widout asking for it particu- 
larly, vill it not!” 

“• I never heard that it would.” 

“ If anybody hast a claim to der broperty, vilt not der 
courts try it?” 

“ Yes, yes — in that way ; but a tenant can’t set up a title 
ag’in his landlord.” 

“ Vhy should he? He canst haf no title but his landlords, 
and it vould be roguery and cheatery to let a man get into 
der bossession of a farm under der pretence of hiring it, und 
den coome out und claim it as owner. If any tenant dinks 
he hast a better right dan his landlort, he can put der farm 
vhere it vast before he might be a tenant, und den der State 
wilt examine into der title, I fancys.” 

“ Yes, yes — in that way ; but these men want it another 
way. What they want is for the State to set up a legal ex- 
amination, and turn the landlords off altogether, if they can, 
and then let themselves have the farms in their stead.” 

“ But dat would not be honest to dem dat hafen’t nothing 
to do wid der farms. If der State owns der farms, it ought 
to get as moch as it can for dem, and so safe all der people 
from baying taxes. It looks like roguery, all roundt.” 

“ I believe it is that, and nothing else ! As you say, the 
State will examine into the title as it is, and there is no need 
of any laws about it.” 

“ Would der State, dink you, pass a law dat might inquire 
into de demandts dat are made against der batroons, vhen 
der tratesmen sent in deir bills ?” 

“ I should like to see any patroon ask sich a thing ! He 
would be laughed at, from York to Buffalo.” 

“ Und he would desarf it. By vhat I see, frient, your 
denants be der arisdograts, und der landlordts der vassals.” 

“ Why you see — what may your name be ? — as we ’re 
likely to become acquainted, I should like to know your 
name. 

“ My name is Greisenbach, und I comes from Preussen.” 

‘‘ Well, Mr. Greisenbach, the difficulty about aristocracy 
is this. Hugh Littlepage is rich, and his money gives him 


THE REDSKINS. 147 

ndvanlages” that other men can’t enj’y. Now, that sticks 
in some folks’ crops.” 

“ Oh ! den it ist meant to divite broperty in dis coontry ; 
und to say no man might haf more ast anudder?” 

“ Folks don’t go quite as far as that, yet ; though some 
of their talk does squint that-a-way, I must own. Now, 
there are folks about here that complain that old Madam 
Littlepage and her young ladies don’t visit the poor.” 

“ Veil, if deys be hard-hearted, und hast no feelin’s for 
der poor and miseraple ” 

“ No, no ; that is not what I mean, neither. As for that 
sort of poor, everybody allows they do more for them than 
anybody else about here. But they don’t visit the poor that 
isn’t in want.” 

“ Veil, it ist a ferry coomfortable sort of poor dat ist not 
ill any vant. Berhaps you mean dey don’t associate wid 
’em, as equals?” 

“That’s it. Now, on that head, I must say there is 
some truth in the charge, for the gals over at the Nest never ' 
come here to visit my gal, and Kitty is as nice a young 
thing as there is about.” 

“ Und Gitty goes to visit the gal of the man who lives 
over yonter, in de house on der hill ?” pointing to a resi- 
dence of a man of the very humblest class in the town. 

“ Hardly ! Kitty ’s by no means proud, but I shouldn’t 
like her to be too thick there.” 

“ Oh ! you ’re an arisdograt, den, after all ; else might 
your daughter visit dat man’s daughter.” 

“ I tell you, Grunzebach, or whatever your name may 
be,” returned Miller, a little angrily, though a particularly 
good-natured man in the main, “ that my gal shall not visit , 
old Steven’s da’ghters.” 

“ Veil, I ’m sure she might do as she bleases ; but I dinks 
der Mademoiselles Littlepage might do ast dey pleases, too.” 

“ There is but one Littlepage gal ; if you saw them out 
this morning in the carriage, you saw two York gais and 
parson Warren’s da’ghter with her.” 

“Und dis parson Warren might be rich, too?” 

“ Not he ; he hasn’t a sixpence on ’arth but what he gets 
from the parish. Why he is so poor his friends had to edi- 
cate his da’ghter, I have heern say, over and over !” 


148 


T HE REDSKINS. 


“Und das Littlepage gal und de Warren gal might be I 
goot friends?” j 

“ They are the thickest together of any two young wo- 
men in this part of the world. I Ve never seen two gals 
more intimate. Now, there’s a young lady in the town, 
one Opportunity Newcome, who, one might think, would 
stand before Mary Warren at the big house, any day in the 
week, but she doesn’t ! Mary takes all the shine out on 
her.” 

“ Which ist der richest, Obbordunity or Mary ?” 

“ By all accounts Mary Warren has nothing, while Op- 
portunity is thought to come next to Malty herself, as to 
property, of all the young gals about here. But Opportu- 
nity is no favourite at the Nest.” 

“ Den it would seem, after all, dat dis Miss Littlebage does 
not choose her friends on account of riches. She likes Mary 
Warren, who ist boor, und she does not like Obbordunity, 
who ist veil to do in de vorlt. Berhaps der Littlepages be 
not as big arisdograts as you supposes.” 

Miller was bothered, while I felt a disposition to laugh. 
One of the commonest errors of those who, from position 
and habits, are unable to appreciate the links which connect 
cultivated society together, is to refer everything to riches. 
Riches, in a certain sense, as a means and through their 
consequences, may be a principal agent in dividing society 
into classes ; but, long after riches have taken wings, their 
fruits remain, when good use has been made of their pre- 
sence. So untrue is the vulgar opinion — or it might be bet- 
ter to say the opinion of the vulgar — that money is the one 
tie which unites polished society, that it is a fact which all 
must know who have access to the better circles of even our 
own commercial towns, that those circles, loosely and acci- 
dentally constructed as they are, receive with reluctance, 
nay, often sternly exclude, vulgar wealth from iheir associa- 
tions, while the door is open to the cultivated who have no- 
thing. The young, in particular, seldom think much of j 

money, while family connections, early communications, | 

similarity of opinions, and, most of all, of tastes, bring sets i 
together, and often keep them together long after the golden ! 
band has been broken. 

But men have great difficulty in comprehending things 


THE REDSKINS. 


149 

that lie beyond their reach ; and money being apparent to 
the senses, while refinement, through its infinite gradations, 
is visible principally, and, in some cases, exclusively to its 
possessors, it is not surprising that common minds should 
I refer a tie that, to them, would otherw-ise be mysterious, to 
! the more glittering influence, and not to the Jess obvious. 
Infinite, indeed, are the gradations of cultivated habits ; nor 
are as many of them the fruits of caprice and self-indulgence 
as men usually suppose. There is a common sense, nay, 
a certain degree of wisdom, in the laws of even etiquette, 
while they are confined to equals, that bespeak the respect 
of those who understand them. As for the influence of as- 
sociations on men’s manners, on their exteriors, and even 
on their opinions, my uncle Ro has long maintained that it 
' is so apparent that one of his lime of life could detect the 
man of the world, at such a place as Saratoga even, by an 
intercourse of five minutes ; and what is more, that he could 
tell the class in life from which he originally emerged. He 
tried it, the last summer, on our return from Ravensnest, 
and I was amused with his success, though he made a few 
mistakes, it must be admitted. 

“ That young man comes from the better circles, but he 
has never travelled,” he said, alluding to one of a group 
which still remained at table; “while he who is next him 
has travelled, but commenced badly.” This may seem a 
very nice distinction, but I think it is easily made. “ There 
! are two brothers, of an excellent family in Pennsylvania,” 
he continued, “ as one might know from the name ; the 
eldest has travelled, the youngest has not.” This was a 
still harder distinction to make, but one who knew the world 
as well as my uncle Ro could do it. He went on amusing 
me by his decisions — all of which were respectable, and some 
surprisingly accurate — in this way for several minutes. Now, 
like has an affinity to like, and in this natural attraction is 
to be found the secret of the ordinary construction of soci- 
ety. You shall put two men of superior minds in a room 
full of company, and they will find each other out directly, 
and enjoy the accident. The same is true as to the rnere 
modes of thinking that characterize social castes; and it is 
truer in this country, perhaps, than most others, from the 
mixed character of our associations. Of the two, I am really 
13 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


150 

of opinion that the man of high intellect, who meets with 
one of moderate capacity, but of manners and social opinions 
on a level with his own, has more pleasure in the commu- 
nication than with one of equal mind, but of inferior habits. 

That Patt should cling to one like Mary Warren seemed 
to me quite as natural as that she should be averse to much 
association with Opportunity Newcome. The money of the 
latter, had my sister been in the least liable to such an in- 
fluence, was so much below what she had been accustomed, 
all her life, to consider affluence, that it would have had no 
effect, even had she been subject to so low a consideration 
in regulating her intercourse with others. But this poor 
Tom Miller could not understand. He could “ only reason 
from what he knew,” and he knew little of the comparative 
notions of wealth, and less of the powers of cultivation on 
the mind and manners. He was struck, however, with a 
fact that did come completely within the circle of his own 
knowledge, and that was the circumstance that Mary War- 
ren, while admitted to be poor, was the bosom friend of her 
whom he was pleased to call, sometimes, the “ Littlepage 
gal.” It was easy to see he felt the force of this circum- 
stance ; and it is to be hoped that, as he was certainly a 
wiser, he also became a better man, on one of the most 
common of the weaknesses of human frailty. 

“ Wa-a-1,” he replied to my uncle’s last remark, after 
fully a minute of silent reflection, “ I don’t know ! It would 
seem so, I vow ; and yet it hasn’t been my wife’s notion, 
nor is it Kitty’s. You ’re quite upsetting my idees about 
aristocrats ; fer though I like the Littlepages, I ’ve always 
set ’em down as desp’rate aristocrats.” 

“ Nein, nein ; dem as vat you calls dimigogues be der 
American arisdograts. Dey gets all der money of der poob- 
lic, und haf all der power, but dey gets a little mads because 
dey might not force demselves on der gentlemen and laties 
of der coontry, as veil as on der lands und der offices !” 

“ I swan ! I don’t know but this may be true ! A’ter all, 
I don’t know what right anybody has to complain of the 
Littlepages.” 

“Does dey dreat beoples veil, as might coome to see 
dem?” 

“Yes, indeed! if folks treat them well, as sometimes 


the redskins. 


151 

doesn’t happen. I’ve seen hogs here” — Tom was a little 
Saxon in his figures, but their nature will prove their justi- 
fication — “ I ’ve seen hogs about here, bolt right in before 
old Madam Littlepage, and draw their chairs up to her fire, 
and squirt about the tobacco, and never think of even taking 
off their hats. Them folks be always huffy about their own 
importance, though they never think of other people’s 
feelin’s.” 

We were interrupted by the sound of wheels, and look- 
ing round, we perceived that the carriage of my grandmo- 
ther had driven up to the farm-house door, on its return 
home. Miller conceived it to be no more than proper to go 
and see if he were wanted, and we followed him slowly, it 
being the intention of my uncle to offer his mother a watch, 
by way of ascertaining if she could penetrate his disguise. 


CHAPTER X; 

“ Will y-ou bay any tape, 

Or lace for your capel — 

Come to the pedlar, 

Money ’s a medler 

That doth utter all men’s ware-a.” 

Winter's Tak, 

There they sat, those four young creatures, a perfect 
galaxy of bright and beaming eyes. There was not a plain 
face among them ; and I was struck with the circumstance 
of how rare it was to meet with a youthful and positively 
ugly American female. Kitty, too, was at the door by the 
time w’e reached the carriage, and she also was a blooming 
and attractive-looking girl. It was a thousand pities that 
she spoke, however ; the vulgarity of her utterance, tone 
of voice, cadences, and accent, the latter a sort of singing 
whine, being in striking contrast to a sort of healthful and 
vigorous delicacy that marked her appearance. All the 


j 


the redskins 


153 

bright eyes grew brighter as I drew nearer, carrying the 
flute in my hand ; but neither of the young ladies spoke. 

“Buy a vatch, ma’ams,” said uncle Ro, approaching his 
mother, cap in hand, with his box open. 

“ I thank you, friend ; but I believe all here are provided 
with watches already.” 

“ Mine ist ferry sheaps.” 

“ I dare say they may be,” returned dear grandmother, 
smiling ; “ though cheap watches are not usually the best. 
Is that very pretty pencil gold ?” 

“ Yes, ma’ams ; it ist of £-ooi gold. If it might not be, I 
might not say so.” 

I saw suppressed smiles ^mong the girls ; all of whom, 
however, were too well-bred to betray to common observers 
the sense of the ridiculous that each felt at the equivoque 
that suggested itself in my uncle’s words. 

“ What is the price of this pencil,” asked my grandmo- 
ther. 

Uncle Roger had too much tact to think of inducing his 
mother to make a purchase as he had influenced Miller, and 
he mentioned something near the true value of the “ article,” 
which was fifteen dollars. 

“ I will take it,” returned my grandmother, dropping 
three half eagles into the box ; when, turning to Mary War- 
ren, she begged her acceptance of the pencil, with as much 
respect in her manner as if she solicited instead of conferred 
a favour. 

Mary Warren’s handsome face was covered with blushes ; 
she looked pleased, and she accepted the offering, though I 
thought she hesitated one moment about the propriety of so 
doing, most probably on account of its value. My sister 
asked to look at this little present, and after admiring it, it 
passed from hand to hand, each praising its shape and orna- 
ments. All my uncle’s wares, indeed, were in perfect good 
taste, the purchase having been made of an importer of cha- 
racter, and paid for at some cost. The watches, it is true, 
were, with one or two exceptions, cheap, as were most of 
the trinkets; but my uncle had about his person a watch, 
or two, and some fine jewelry, that he had brought from 
Europe himself, expressly to bestow in presents, among 


THE REDSKINS. 153 

which had been the pencil in question, and which ho had 
dropped into the box but a moment before it was sold. 

“ W a-a-1, Madam Littlepage,” cried Miller, who used the 
familiarity of one born on the estate, “ this is the queerest 
watch-pedlar I Ve met with, yet. He asks fifteen dollars 
for that pencil, and only four for this watch !” showing his 
own purchase as he concluded. 

My grandmother took the watch in her hand, and exa- 
mined it attentively. 

“ It strikes me as singularly cheap !” she remarked, 
glancing a little distrustfully, as I fancied, at her son, as if 
she thought he might be selling his brushes cheaper than 
those who only stole the materials, because he stole them 
ready made. “I know that these watches are made for 
very little in the cheap countries of Europe, but one can 
hardly see how this machinery was put together for so small 
a sum.” 

“ I has ’em, matam, at all brices,” put in my uncle. 

I have a strong desire to purchase a good lady’s watch, 
but should a little fear buying of any but a known and regu- 
lar dealer.” 

“ You needn’t fear us, ma’am,” I ventured to say. “ If 
we might sheat anypodies, we shouldn’t sheat so goot a 
laty.” 

I do not know whether my voice struck Patt’s ear plea- 
santly, or a wish to see the project of her grandmother car 
ried out at once, induced my sister to interfere ; but inter- 
fere she did, and that by urging her aged parent to put 
confidence in us. Years had taught my grandmother cau- 
tion, and she hesitated. 

“ But all these watches are of base metal, and I want one 
of good gold and handsome finish,” observed my grand 
mother. 

My uncle immediately produced a watch that he had 
bought of Blondel, in Paris, for five hundred francs, and 
which was a beautiful little ornament for a lady’s belt. He 
gave it to my grandmother, who read the name of the manu- 
facturer with some little surprise. The watch itself was 
then examined attentively, and was applauded by all. 

“ And what may be the price of this ?” demanded my 
grandmother. 


154 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ One hoondred dollars, matam ; and sheapa at dat.** 

Tom Miller looked at the bit of tinsel in his own hand, 
and at the smaller, but exquisitely-shaped “ article” that my 
grandmother held up to look at, suspended by its bit of rib- 
bon, and was quite as much puzzled as he had evidently 
been a little while before, in his distinctions between the 
rich and the poor. Tom was not able to distinguish the 
base from the true ; that was all. 

My grandmother did not appear at all alarmed at the 
price, though she cast another distrustful glance or two, over 
her spectacles, at the imaginary pedlar. At length the beauty 
of the watch overcarne her. 

“ If you will bring this watch to yonder large dwelling, I j 
will fMiy you the hundred dollars for it,” she said ; “ I have j 
not as much money with me here.” | 

“ Ja, ja — ferry goot ; you might keep das vatch, laty, und j 
I will coome for der money after I haf got some dinners of | 
somebodys.” j 

My grandmother had no scruple about accepting of the 
credit, of course, and she was about to put the watch in her 
pocket, when Patt laid her little gloved hand on it, and cried— 
“Now, dearest grandmother, let it be done at once — 
there is no one but us three present, you know !” 

“ Such is the impatience of a child !” exclaimed the elder 
lady, laughing. “Well, you shall be indulged. I gave 
you that pencil for a keep-sake, Mary, only en attendant^ 
it having been my intention to offer a watch, as soon as a 
suitable one could be found, as a memorial of the sense I 
entertain of the spirit you showed during that dark week in 
which the anti-renters were so menacing. Here, then, is 
such a watch as I might presume to ask you to have the 
goodness to accept.” 

Mary Warren seemed astounded ! The colour mounted 
to her temples; then she became suddenly pale. I had 
never seen so pretty a picture of gentle female distress — a 
distress that arose from conflicting, but creditable feelings. 

“ Oh ! Mrs. Litllepage !” she exclaimed, after looking in 
astonishment at the offering for a moment, and in silence. 

“ You cannot have intended that beautiful watch for me [” * 

For you, my dear ; the beautiful watch is not a whit 
too good for my beautiful Mary.” 


k I 


THE REDSKINS. 155 

“But, dear, dear Mrs. Littlepage, it is altogether too 
handsome for my station — for my means.” 

“ A lady can very well wear such a watch ; and you are 
a lady in every sense of the word, and so you need have 
no scruples on that account. As for the means, you will 
not misunderstand me if I remind you that it will be 
bought with my means, and there can be no extravagance 
in the purchase.” 

“ But we are so poor, and that watch has so rich an ap- 
pearance ! It scarcely seems right.” 

“ I respect your feelmgs and sentiments, my dear girl, 
and can appreciate them, I suppose you know I was once 
as poor, nay, much poorer than you are, yourself,” 

“ You, Mrs. Littlepage ! No, that can hardly he. You 
are of an affluent and very respectable family, I know.” 

“ It is quite true, nevertheless, my dear. I shall not af- 
fect extreme humility, and deny that the Malbones did and 
do belong to the gentry of the land, but my brother and 
myself were once so much reduced as to toil with the sur- 
veyors, in the woods, quite near this property. We had 
then no claim superior to yours, and in many respects were 
reduced much lower. Besides, the daughter of an educated 
and well-connected clergyman has claims that, in a worldly 
point of view alone, entitle her to a certain consideration. 
You will do me the favour to accept my offering?” 

“ Dear Mrs. Littlepage ! I do not know how to refuse 
yoUj or how to accept so rich a gift! You will let me con- 
sult my father, first?” 

“ That will be no more than proper, my dear,” returned 
my beloved grandmother, quietly putting the watch into her 
own pocket; “Mr. Warren, luckily, dines with us, and the 
matter can be settled before we sit down to table.” 

This ended the discussion, which had commenced under 
an impulse of feeling that left us all its auditors. As for 
my uncle and myself, it is scarcely necessary to say we 
were delighted with the little scene. The benevolent wish 
to gratify, on the one side, with the natural scruples on the 
other, about receiving, made a perfect picture for our con- 
templation. The three girls, who were witnesses of what 
passed, too much respected Mary’s feelings to interfere, 
though Patt restrained herself with difficulty. As to Tom 


THE REDSKINS. 


156 

Miller and Kitty, they doubtless wondered why “ Warren’s 
gal” was such a fool as to hesitate about accepting a watch 
that was worth a hundred dollars. This was another point 
they did not understand. 

“ You spoke of dinner,” continued my grandmother, look- 
ing at my uncle. “If you and your companion will follow 
us to the hotrse, I will pay you for the watch, and order you 
a dinner in the bargain.” 

We were right down glad to accept this offer, making our 
bows and expressing our thanks, as the carriage whirled 
off. We remained a moment, to take our leave of Miller. 

“ When you ’ve got through at the Nest,” said that semi- 
worthy fellow, “give us another call here. I should like 
my woman and Kitty to have a look at your finery, before 
you go down to the village with it.” 

With a promise to return to the farm-house, we proceeded 
on our way to the building which, in the familiar parlance 
of the country, was called the Nest, or the Nest House, 
from Ravensnest, its true name, and which Tom Miller, in 
his country dialect, called the “ Neest.” The distance be- 
tween the two buildings was less than half a mile, the 
j grounds of the family residence lying partly between them, 
j Many persons would have called the extensive lawns which 
I surrounded my paternal abode a park, but it never bore that 

i name with us. They were too large for a paddock, and 

might very well have come under the former appellation; 
but, as deer, or animals of any sort, except those that are 
domestic, had never been kept within it, the name had not 
been used. We called them the grounds — a term which 
applies equally to large and small enclosures of this nature 
! — while the broad expanse of verdure which lies directly 

under the windows goes by the name of the lawn. Not- 
withstanding the cheapness of land among us, there has 
been very little progress made in the art of landscape gar- 
I dening ; and if we have anything like park scenery, it is 
I far more owing to the gifts of a bountiful nature than to any 
j of the suggestions of art. Thanks to the cultivated taste of 
I Downing, as well as to his well-directed labours, this re- 

j proach is likely to be soon removed, and country life will 

I acquire this pleasure, among the many others that are so 
I peculiarly its own. After lying for more than twenty years 



T HE REDSKINS. 


157 


— a stigma on the national taste — disfigured by ravines or 
gullies, and otherwise in a rude and discreditable condition, 
the grounds of the White House have been brought into a 
condition to denote that they are the property of a civilized 
country. The Americans are as apt at imitation as the 
Chinese, with a far greater disposition to admit of change ; 
and little beyond good models are required to set them on 
the right track. But it is certain that, as a nation, we have 
yet to acquire nearly all that belongs to the art I have men- 
tioned that lies beyond avenues of trees, with an occasional 
tuft of shrubbery. The abundance of the latter, that forms 
the wilderness of sweets, the rnasses of flowers that spot the 
surface of Europe, the beauty of curved lines, and the whole 
finesse of surprises, reliefs, back-grounds and vistas, are 
things so little known among us as to be almost “ arisdo- 
' gratic,” as my uncle Ro would call the word. 

I Little else had been done at Ravensnest than to profit by 
I the native growth of the trees, and to take advantage of the 
I favourable circumstances in the formation of the grounds. 

I Most travellers imagine that it might be an easy thing to 
I lay out a park in the virgin forest, as the axe might spare 
: the thickets, and copses, and woods, that elsewhere are the 
fruits of time and planting. This is all a mistake, how- 
ever, as the rule ; though modified exceptions may and do 
exist. The tree of the American forest shoots upward to- 
ward the light, growing so tall and slender as to be un- 
j sightly ; and even when time has given its trunk a due size, 
the top is rarely of a breadth to ornament a park or a lawn, 
I while its roots, seeking their nourishment in the rich allu- 
! vium formed by the decayed leaves of a thousand years, lie 
I too near the surface to afford sufficient support after losing 
I the shelter of its neighbours. It is owing to reasons like 

I these that the ornamental grounds of an American country- 

j house have usually to be commenced ah origine, and that 
i natural causes so little aid in finishing them. 

' My predecessors had done a little towards assisting na- 
j ture, at the Nest, and what was of almost equal importance, 

: in the state of knowledge on this subject as it existed in the 
I country sixty years since, they had done little to mar her 

! efforts. The results were, that the grounds of Ravensnest 

i possess a breadth that is the fruit of the breadth of our lands, 

I VoL. I.— 14 


158 TIIEKEDSKINS. 

and a rural beauty which, without being much aided by art, 
was still attractive. The herbage was kept short by sheep, 
of which one thousand, of the fine wool, were feeding on 
the lawns, along the slopes, and particularly on the distant 
heights, as we crossed the grounds on our way to the doors. 

The Nest House was a respectable New York country 
dwelling, as such buildings were constructed among us in 
the last quarter of the past century, a little improved and 
enlarged by the second and third generations of its owners. 
The material was of stone, the low cliff on which it stood 
supplying enough of an excellent quality ;* and the shape of 
the main corps de hatiment as near a square as might be. 
Each face of this part of the constructions offered five win- 
dows to view, this being almost the prescribed number for 
a country residence in that day, as three have since got to 
be in towns. These windows, however, had some size, the 
main building being just sixty feet square, which was about 
ten feet in each direction larger than was common so soon 
after the revolution. But wings had been added to the ori- 
ginal building, and that on a plan which conformed to the 
shape of a structure in square logs, that had been its prede- 
cessor on its immediate site. These wings were only of a 
story and a half each, and doubling on each side of the main 
edifice just far enough to form a sufficient communication, 
they ran back to the very verge of a clifl^ some forty feet in 
height, overlooking, at their respective ends, a meandering 
rivulet, and a wide expanse of very productive flats, that 
annually filled my barns with hay and my cribs with corn. 
Of this level and fertile bottom-land there was near a thou- 
sand acres, stretching in three directions, of which two hun- 
dred belonged to what was called the Nest Farm. The 
lernainder was divided among the farms of the adjacent ten- 
antry. This little circumstance, among the thousand-and- 
one other atrocities that were charged upon me, had been 
made a ground of accusation, to which I shall presently have 
occasion to advert. I shall do this the more readily, because 
the fact has not yet reached the ears and set in motion the 
tongues of legislators — Heaven bless us, how words do get 
corrupted by too much use! — in their enumeration of the 
griefs of the tenants of the State. 

Everything about the Nest was kept in perfect order, and 


THE REDSKINS. 


159 

n a condition to do credit to the energy and taste of my 
grandmother, who had ordered all these things for the last 
few years, or since the death of my grandfather. This cir- 
cumstance, connected with the fact that the building was 
larger and more costly than those of most of the other citi- 
zens of the country, had, of late years, caused Ravensnest 
to be termed an “ aristocratic residence.” This word “ aris- 
tocratic,” I find since my return home, has got to be a term 
of expansive signification, its meaning depending on the 
particular habits and opinions of the person who happens to 
use it. Thus, he who chews tobacco thinks it aristocratic 
in him who deems the practice nasty not to do the same ; 
the man who stoops accuses him who is straight in the back 
of having aristocratic shoulders ; and I have actually met 
with one individual who maintained that it was excessively 
aristocratic to pretend not to blow one’s nose with his fin- 
gers. It will soon be aristocratic to maintain the truth of 
the familiar Latin axiom of “ de gustibus non disputandum 

CStm _ 

As we approached the door of the Nest House, which 
opened on the piazza that stretched along three sides of the 
main building, and the outer ends of both wings, the coach- 
man was walking his horses away from it, on the road that 
led to the stables. The party of ladies had made a consi- 
derable circuit after quitting the farm, and had arrived but 
a minute before us. All the girls but Mary Warren had 
entered the house, careless on the subject of the approach 
of two pedlars ; she remained, however, at the side of my 
grandmother, to receive us. 

“I believe in my soul,” whispered uncle Ro, “that my 
dear old mother has a secret presentiment who we are, by 
her manifesting so much respect. — T’ousand t’anks, matam, 
t’ousand t’anks,” he continued, dropping into his half-accu- 
rate half-blundering broken English, “ for dis great honour, 
such as we might not expect das laty of das house to wait 
for us at her door.” 

“ This young lady tells me that she has seen you before, 
and that she understands you are both persons of education 
and good manners, who have been driven from your native 
country by political troubles. Such being the case, I can- 
not regard you as common pedlars. I have known what it 


THE REDSKINS. 


i60 

was to be reduced in fortune,” — my dear grandmother’s! 
voice trembled a little — “and can feel for those who thus 
suffer.” 

“ Matam, dere might be moch trut’ in some of dis,” an- 
swered my uncle, taking off his cap, and bowing very much 
like a gentleman, an act in which I imitated him immedi* 
ately. “ We haf seen petter tays ; und my son, dere, hast 
peen edicatet at an university. But we are now poor ped- 
lars of vatches, und dem dat might make moosic in der 
streets.” 

My grandmother looked as a lady would look under such 
circumstances, neither too free to forget present appearances, 
nor coldly neglectful of the past. She knew that something 
was due to her own household, and to the example she ought 
to set it, while she felt that far more was due to the senti- 
ment that unites the cultivated. We were asked into the 
house, were told a table was preparing for us, and were 
treated with a generous and considerate hospitality that in- 
volved no descent from her own character, ’or that of the 
sex ; the last being committed to the keeping of every lady. 

In the mean time, business proceeded with my uncle. He 
was paid his hundred dollars ; and all his stores of value, 
including rings, brooches, ear-rings, chains, bracelets, and 
other trinkets that he had intended as presents to his wards, 
were produced from his pockets, and laid before the bright 
eyes of the three girls — Mary Warren keeping in the back 
ground, as one who ought not to look on things unsuited to 
her fortune. Her father had arrived, however, had been 
consulted, and the pretty watch was already attached to the 
girdle of the prettier waist. I fancied the tear of gratitude 
that still floated in her serene eyes was a jewel of far higher 
price than any my uncle could exhibit. 

We had been shown into the library, a room that was in 
the front of the house, and of which the windows all opened 
on the piazxa. I was at first a little overcome, at thus finding 
myself, and unrecognized, under the paternal roof, and in 
ji dwelling that was my own, after so many years of ab- 
sence. Shall I confess it ! Everything appeared diminu- 
tive and mean, after the buildings to which I had been ac- 
customed in the old world. I am not now drawing compa- 
risons with the palaces of princes, and the abodes of the 


THE REDSKINS. 


161 

great, as the American is apt to fancy, whenever anything 
is named that is superior to the things to which he is accus- 
tomed ; but to the style, dwellings, and appliances of domes- 
tic life that pertain to those of other countries who have not 
a claim in anything to be accounted my superiors — scarcely 
my equals. In a word, American aristocracy, or that which 
it is getting to be the fashion to stigmatize as aristocratic, 
would be deemed very democratic in most of the nations of 
Europe. Our Swiss brethren have their chateaux and their 
habits that are a hundr^ times more aristocratic than any- 
thing about Ravensnest, without giving offence to liberty ; 
and I feel persuaded, were the proudest establishment in all 
America pointed out to a European as an aristocratic abode, 
he would be very apt to laugh at it, in his sleeve. The se- 
cret of this charge among ourselves is the innate dislike 
which is growing up in the country to see any man distin- 
guished from the mass around him in anything, even though 
it should be in merit. It is nothing but the expansion of 
the principle which gave rise to the traditionary feud be- 
tween the “ plebeians and patricians” of Albany, at the 
commencement of this century, and which has now de- 
scended so much farther than was then contemplated by the 
soi-disant “ plebeians” of that day, as to become quite disa- 
greeable to their own descendants. But to return to my- 
self — 

I will own that, so far from finding any grounds of ex- 
ultation in my own aristocratical splendour, when I came 
to view my possessions at home, I felt mortified and disap- 
pointed. The things that I had fancied really respectable, 
and even fine, from recollection, now appeared very com- 
mon-place, and in many particulars mean. “ Really,” I 
found myself saying sotto voce, “all this is scarcely worthy 
of being the cause of deserting the right, setting sound prin- 
ciples at defiance, and of forgetting God and his command- 
ments !” Perhaps I was too inexperienced to comprehend 
how capacious is the maw of the covetous man, and how 
microscopic the eye of envy. 

“ You are welcome to Ravensnest,” said Mr. Warren, 
approaching and offering his hand in a friendly way, much 
as he would address any other young friend ; “ we arrived 
V little before you, and I have had my ears and eyes open 
14 * 


162 


THE REDSKINS 


ever since, in the hope of hearing your flute, and of seeing 
your form in the highway, near the parsonage, where you 
promised to visit me.” 

Mary was standing at her father’s elbow, as when I first 
saw her, and she gazed wistfully at my flute, as she would 
not have done had she seen me in my proper attire, assuming 
my proper character. 

“ 1 danks you, sir,” was my answer. “ We might haf 
plenty of times for a little moosic, vhen das laties shall be 
pleaset to say so. I canst blay Yankee Doodle, Hail Co- 
loombias, and der ‘ Star Spangled Banner,’ und all dem airs, 
as dey so moch likes at der taverns and on der road.” 

Mr. Warren laughed, and he took the flute from my hand, 
and began to examine it. I now trembled for the incognito 1 
The instrument had been mine for many years, and was a 
very capital one, with silver keys, stops, and ornaments. 
AVhat if Patt — what if my dear grandmother should recog- 
nise it ! I would have given the handsomest trinket in my 
uncle’s collection to get the flute back again into my own 
hands ; but, before an opportunity offered for that, it went 
from hand to hand, as the instrument that had produced the 
charming sounds heard that morning, until jt reached those 
of Martha. The dear girl was thinking of the jewelry, 
which, it will be remembered, was rich, and intended in 
part for herself, and she passed the instrument on, saying, 
hurriedly, — 

“ See, dear grandmother, this is the flute which you pro- 
nounced the sweetest toned of any you had ever heard !” 

My grandmother took the flute, started, put her spectacl^^^ 
closer to her eyes, examined the instrument, turned pale — 
for her cheeks still retained a little of the colour of their 
youth — and then cast a glance hurriedly and anxiously at 
me. I could see that she was pondering on something pro- 
foundly in her most secret mind, for a minute 'or two. 
Luckily the others were too much occupied with the box of 
the pedlar to heed her movements. She walked slowly out 
of the door, almost brushing me as she passed, and wenW 
into the hall. Here she turned, and, catching my eye, she^ 
signed for me to join her. Obeying this signal, I followed, 
until I was led into a little room, in one of the wings, that I 
well remembered as a sort of private parlour attached to my 


THE REDSKINS. 163 

grandmother’s own bed-room. To call it a boudoir would 
be to caricature things, its furniture being just that of the 
sort of room I have mentioned, or of a plain, neat, comfort- 
able, country parlour. Here my grandmother took her seat 
on a sofa, for she trembled so she could not stand, and then 
she turned to gaze at me wistfully, and with an anxiety it 
would be difficult for me to describe. 

“ Do not keep me in suspense!” she said, almost awfully 
in tone and manner, “ am I right in my conjecture?” 

“ Dearest grandmother, you are !” I answered, in my na- 
tural voice. 

No more was needed : we hung on each other’s necks, as 
had been my wont in boyhood. 

“ But who is that pedlar, Hugh ?” demanded my grand- 
j mother, after a time. “ Can it possibly be Roger, my son ?” 

“ It is no other ; we have come to visit you, incog.” 

“ And why this disguise? — Is it conne^'tcd with the trou- 
bles?” 

“ Certainly ; we have wished to take a near view with 
our own eyes, and supposed it might be unwise to come 
openly, in our proper characters.” 

“ In this you have done well ; yet I hardly know how to 
welcome you, in your present characters. On no account 
must your real names be revealed. The demons of tar and 
feathers, the sons of liberty and equality, who illustrate their 
principles as they do their courage, by attacking the few' 
with the many, would be stirring, fancying themselves he- 
roes and martyrs in the cause of justice, did they learn you 
7^ were here. Ten armed and resolute men might drive a 
hundred of them, I do believe; for they have all the cow-, 
ardice of thieves, but they are heroes with the unarmed and 
feeble. Are you safe, yourselves, appearing thus disguised, 
under the new law?” 

“ We are not armed, not having so much as a pistol ; and 
that will protect us.” 

“ I am sorry to say, Hu'gh, that this country is no longer 
what I once knew it. Its justice, if not wholly departed, is 
taking toTtself wings, and its blindness, not in a disregard 
of persons, but in a faculty of seeing only the stronger side. 
A landlord, in my opinion, would have but little hope, with 
juiy, judge, or executive, for doing that which thousands 


THE REDSKINS. 


164 

of the tenants have done, still do, and will cont\r.do to do, | 
with perfect impunity, unless some dire catastrophe stimu. 
lates the public functionaries to their duties, by awakening 
public indignation.” 

“ This is a miserable state of things, dearest grandmother; 
and what makes it worse, is the cool indifference with which 
most persons regard it. A better illustration of the utter 
selfishness of human nature cannot be given, than in the 
manner in which the body of the people look on, and see 
wrong thus done to a few of their number.” j 

“Such persons as Mr. Seneca Newcome would answer, j 
that the public sympathises with the poor, who are oppressed | 
by the rich, because the last do not wish to let the first rob | 
them of their estates ! We hear a great deal of the strong | 
1 robbing the weak, all over the world, but few among our- j 
selves, I am afraid, are sufficiently clear-sighted to see how 
vivid an instance of the truth now exists among ourselves.” ; 

“ Calling the tenants the strong, and the landlords the j 
weak ?” 

“ Certainly ; numbers make strength, in this country m 
which all power in practice, and most of it in theory, rests 
with the majority. Were there as many landlords as there 
are tenants, my life on it, no one would see the least injus- 
tice in the present stale of things.” 

“ So says my uncle : but I hear the light steps of the 
girls — we must be on our guard.” 

At that instant Martha entered, followed by all three of 
the girls, holding in her hand a very beautiful Manilla chain 
that my uncle had picked up in his travels, and had pur-, 
chased as a present to my future wife, whomsoever she 
might turn out to be, and which he had had the indiscretion 
to show to his ward. A look of surprise was cast by each 
girl in succession, as she entered the room, on me, but nei- 
ther said, and I fancy neither thought much of my being 
shut up there with an old lady of eighty, after the first mo- 
ment. Other thoughts were uppermost at the moment. 

“ Look at this, dearest grandmamma !” cried Patt, holding 
up the chain as she entered the room. “ Here is just the 
most exquisite chain that was ever wrought, and of the 
purest gold ; but the pedlar refuses to part with it !” 

I “ Perhaps you do not offer enough, my child ; it is, in^ 


THE REDSKINS. , 165 

deed, very, very beautiful ; pray what does he say is its 
value?” 

“ One hundred dollars, he says ; and I can readily be- 
lieve it, for its weight is near half the money. I do wish 
Hugh were at home ; 1 am certain he would contrive to get 
it, and make it a present to me !” 

“ Nein, nein, young lady,” put in the pedlar, who, a little 
unceremoniously, had followed the girls into the room, though 
he knew, of course, precisely where he was coming ; “ dat 
might not be. Dat chain is der broperty of my son, t’ere, 
und I haf sworn it shalt only be gifen to his wife.” 

Palt coloured a little, and she pouted a good deal ; then 
she laughed outright. 

“ If it is only to be had on those conditions, I am afraid I 
shall never own it,” she said, saucily, though it was in- 
tended to be uttered so low as not to reach my ears. “ I 
will pay the hundred dollars out of my own pocket-money, 
however, if that will buy it. Do say a good word for me, 
grandmamma !” 

How prettily the hussy uttered that word of endearment, 
so different from the “ paw” and “ maw” one hears among 
the dirty-noses that are to be found in the mud-puddles ! 
But our grand-parent was puzzled, for she knew with whom 
she had to deal, and of course saw that money would do 
nothing. Nevertheless, the state of the game rendered it 
necessary to say and do something that might have an ap- 
pearance of complying with Patty’s request. 

“ Can I have more success in persuading you to change 
your mind, sir?” she said, looking at her son in a way that 
let him know at once, or at least made him suspect at once, 
that she was in his secret. “ It would give me great plea- 
sure to be able to gratify my grand-daughter, by making 
her a present of so beautiful a chain.” 

My uncle Ro advanced to his mother, took the hand she 
had extended with the chain in it, in order the better to ad- 
mire the trinket, and he kissed it with a profound respect, 
but in such a manner as to make it seem to the lookers-on 
an act of European usage, rather than what it was, the tem- 
pered salute of a child to his parent. 

“ Laty,” he then said, with emphasis, “ if anyboty might 
make me change a resolution long since made, it would be 


THE REDSICINS. 


166 

one as fenerable, und gracious, und goot as I am sartain 
you most be. But I haf vowet to gif dat chain to das wife 
of mine son, vhen he might marry, one day, some bretty 
young American ; und it nnght not be.” 

Dear grandmother smiled ; but now she understood that 
it was really intended the chain was to be an offering to my 
wife, she no longer wished to change its destination. She 
examined the bauble a few moments, and said to me — 

“ Do you wish this, as well as your un — father, I should 
say 1 It is a rich present for a poor man to make.” 

“ Jci, ja, laty, it ist so ; but vhen der heart goes, golt 
might be t’ought sheap to go wid it.” 

The old lady was half ready to laugh in my face, at hear- 
ing this attempt at Germanic English ; but the kindness, and 
delight, and benevolent tenderness of her still fine eyes, made 
me wish to throw myself in her arms again, and kiss her. 
Patt continued to bonder for a moment or two longer, but 
her excellent nature soon gave in, and the smiles returned 
to her countenance, as the sun issues from behind a cloud 
in May. 

“ Well, the disappointment may and must be borne,” she 
said, good-naturedly ; “ though it is much the most lovely 
chain I have ever seen.” 

“ I dare say the right person will one day find one quite 
as lovely to present to you !” said Henrietta Coldbrook, a 
little pointedly. 

I did not like this speech. It was an allusion that a well- 
bred young woman ought not to have made, at least before 
others, even pedlars; and it was one that a young woman 
of a proper tone of feeling would not be apt to make. I de- 
termined from that instant the chain should never belong to 
Miss Plenrietta, though she was a fine, showy girl, and 
though such a decision would disappoint my uncle sadly. I 
was a little surprised to see a slight blush on Patt’s cheek, 
and then I remembered something of the name of the tra- 
veller, Beekman. Turning towards Mary Warren, I saw 
plain enough that she was disappointed because my sister 
was disappointed, and for no other reason in the world. 

“ Your grandmother will meet with another chain, when 
she goes to town, that will make you forget this,” she whis- 
pered, affectionately, close at my sister’s ear. 


r 


! - THE REDSKINS. 167 ! 

i Patt smiled, and kissed her friend with a warmth of man- | 
J ner that satisfied me these two charming young creatures i 

j loved each other sincerely. But my dear old grandmother’s I 

I curiosity had been awakened, and she felt a necessity for ! 

j having it appeased. She still held the chain, and as she j 

I returned it to me, who happened to be nearest to her, she I 

I said — ^ ! 

“ And so, sir, your mind is sincerely made up to offer j 
this chain to your future wife?” I 

“ Yes, laty ; or what might be better, to das yoong frau, 
before we might be marriet.” 

“ And is your choice made?” glancing round at the girls, 
who were grouped together, looking at some other trinkets 
of my uncle’s. “ Have you chosen the young woman who 
is to possess so handsome a chain ?” 

! “ Nein, riein,” I answered, returning the smile, and glanc- 

I ing also at the group ; “ dere ist so many peautiful laties in 

I America, one needn’t be in a hurry. In goot time I shalt 

j find her dat ist intended for me.” i 

j “ Well, grandmamma,” interrupted Patt, “ since nobody | 

I can have the chain, unless on certain conditions, here are | 

I the three other things that we have chosen for Ann, Henri- i 

I etta, and myself, and they are a ring, a pair of bracelets | 

I and a pair of ear-rings. The cost, altogether, will bo two i 
I hundred dollars; can you approve of that?” I 

j My grandmother, now she knew who was the pedlar, un- 
derstood the whole matter, and had no scruples. The bar 
gain was soon made, when she sent us all out of the room, 
under the pretence we should disturb her while settling with 
the watch-seller. Her real object, however, waf^ be alone i 
' with her son, not a dollar passing between them, of course. 1 


L 


168 the redskins. 


CHAPTER XL 

«« Our life was changed. Another love 
In its lone woof began to twine ; 

But oh! the golden thread was wove 
Between my sister’s heart and mine.” 

Willis. 

Half an hour later, uncle Ro and myself were seated at 
table, eating our dinners as quietly as if we were in an inn. 
The footman who had set the table was an old family ser- 
vant, one who had performed the same sort of duty in that 
very house for a quarter of a century. Of course he was 
not an American, no man of American birth ever remain- 
ing so long a time in an inferior station, or in any station 
so low as that of a house-servant. If he has good qualities 
enough to render it desirable to keep him, he is almost cer- 
tain to go up in the world ; if not, one does not care parti- 
cularly about having him. But Europeans are less elastic 
and less ambitious, and it is no uncommon thing to find one 
of such an origin remaining a long time in the same service. 
Such had been the fact with this man, who had followed 
my own parents from Europe, when they returned from 
their marriage tour, and had been in the house on the occa- 
sion of my birth. From that time he had continued at the 
Nest, never marrying, nor ever manifesting the smallest 
wish for any change. He was an Englishman by birth ; 
and what is very unusual in a servant of that country, when 
transferred to America, the “ letting-up,” which is certain 
to attend such a change from the depression of the original 
condition to that in which he is so suddenly placed, had not 
made him saucy. An American is seldom what is called 
impudent, under any circumstances; he is careless, nay ig 
norant of forms ; pays little or no purely conventional re- 
sped; does not understand half the social distinctions which 
exist among the higher classes of even his own countrymen, 
and fancies there are equalities in things about which, in 
truth, there is great inequality between himself and others 


THE REDSKINS. 


169 

merely because he has been taught that all men are equal 
in rights; but he is so unconscious of any pressure as 
seldom to feel a disposition to revenge himself by impu- 
dence. 

But, while John was not impudent either, he had a foot- 
man’s feeling towards those whom he fancied no better than 
' himself. He had set the table with his customary neatness 
and method, and he served the soup with as much regu- 
larity as he would have done had we sat there in our pro- 
per characters, but then he withdrew. He probably remem- 
bered that the landlord, or upper servant of an English hotel, 
is apt to make his appearance with the soup, and to disap- 
pear as that disappears. So it was with John ; after re- 
moving the soup, he put a dumb-waiter near my uncle, 
touched a carving-knife or two, as much as to say “ help 
yourselves,” and quitted the room. As a matter of course, 
our dinner was not a very elaborate one, it wanting two or 
three hours to the regular time of dining, though my grand- 
mother had ordered, in my hearing, one or two delicacies 
to be placed on the table, that had surprised Patt. Among 
the extraordinary things for such guests was wine. The 
singularity, however, was a little explained by the quality 
commanded, which was Rhenish. 

My uncle Ro was a little surprised at the disappearance 
of John ; for, seated in that room, he was so accustomed to 
his face, that it appeared as if he were not half at home 
without him. 

“ Let the fellow go,” he said, withdrawing his hand from 
the bell-cord, which he had already touched to order him back 
again ; “ we can talk more freely without him. Well, Hugh, 
here you are, under your own roof, eating a charitable din- 
ner, and treated as hospitably as if you did not own all you 
can see for a circle of five miles around you. It was a 
lucky idea of the old lady’s, by the way, to think of order- 
ing this Rudesheimer, in our character of Dutchmen ! How 
amazingly well she is looking, boy !” 

“ Indeed she is; and I am delighted to see it. I do not 
know why my grandmother may not live these twenty 
years; for even that would not make her near as old as 
Sus, who, I have often heard her say, was a middle-aged 
man when she was born.” 

VoL. I.— 15 


170 THE REDSKINS. 

“ True ; she seems like an elder sister to me, rather than 
as a mother, and is altogether a most delightful old woman. 
But, if we had so charming an old woman to receive us, so 
are there also some very charming young women — hey, 
Hugh?” 

“ I am quite of your way of thinking, sir ; and must say 
I have not, in many a day, seen two as charming creatures 
as I have met with here.” 

“ Two ! — umph ; a body would think one might suffice 
Pray, which may be the two. Master Padishah ?” 

“ Patt and Mary Warren, of course. The other two aro 
well enough, but these two are excellent.” 

My uncle Ro looked grum, but he said nothing for some 
time. Eating is always an excuse for a broken conversa- 
tion, and he ate away as if resolute not to betray his disap- 
pointment. But it is a hard matter for a gentleman to do 
nothing but eat at table, and so was obliged to talk. 

“ Everything looks well here, after all, Hugh,” observed 
my uncle. “ These anti-renters may have done an infinite 
deal of harm in the way of abusing principles, but they do 
not seem to have yet destroyed any material things.” 

“ It is not their cue, sir. The crops are their own ; and 
as they hope to own the farms, it would be scarcely wise to 
injure what, no doubt, they begin to look on as their own 
property, too. As for the Nest House, grounds, farm, &c., 
I dare say they will be very willing to leave me them for a 
while longer, provided they can get everything else away 
from me.” 

“ For a time longer, at least; though that is the folly of 
those who expect to get along by concessions ; as if men 
were ever satisfied with the yielding of a part, when they 
ask that which is wrong in itself, without sooner or later 
expecting to get the whole. As well might one expect the 
pickpocket who had abstracted a dollar, to put back two- 
and-sixpence change. But things really look well, around 
the place.” 

“ So much the better for us. Though, to my judgment 
and taste. Miss Mary Warren looks better than anything 
else I have yet seen in America.” 

Another “ umph” expressed my uncle’s dissatisfaction — 




THE REDSKINS. 


171 

displeasure would be too strong a word — and he continued 
eating. 

“ You have really some good Rhenish in your cellar, 
Hugh,” resumed uncle Ro, after tossing off one of the know- 
ing green glasses full — though I never could understand 
why any man should wish to drink his wine out of green, 
when he might do it out of crystal. “ It must have been a 
purchase of mine, made when we were last in Germany, 
and for the use of my mother.” 

“ As you please, sir ; it neither adds nor subtracts from 
the beauty of Martha and her friend.” 

“ Since you are disposed to make these boyish allusions, 
be frank with me, and say, at once, how you like m^ 
wards.” 

“ Meaning, of course, sir, my own sister exclusively. I 
will be as sincere as possible, and say that, as to Miss Mars* 
ton, I have no opinion at all ; and as to Miss Coldbrook, 
she is what, in Europe, would be called a ‘ fine’ woman.” 

“ You can say nothing as to her mind, Hugh, for you 
have had no opportunity Tor forming an opinion.” 

“ Not much of a one, I will own. Nevertheless, I should 
have liked her better had she spared the allusion to the 
* proper person’ who is one day to forge a chain for my sis- 
ter, to begin with.” 

“ Poh, poll ; that is the mere squeamishness of a boy. I 
do not think her in the least pert or forward, and your con- 
struction would be tant soil pen vulgar.” 

“Put your own construction on it, mon oncle ; Ido not 
like it.” 

“ I do not wonder young men remain unmarried ; they 
are getting to be so ultra in their tastes and notions.” 

A stranger might have retorted on an old bachelor, for 
such a speech, by some allusion to his own example ; but I 
well knew that my uncle Ro had once been engaged, and 
that he lost the object of his passion by death, and loo much 
respected his constancy and true sentiments ever to joke on 
such subjects. I believe he felt the delicacy of my forbear- 
ance rather more than common, for he immediately mani- 
fested a disposition to relent, and to prove it by changing 
.he subject. « 


THE REDSKINS. 


173 

“ We can never stay here to-night,” he said. “ It would 
be at once to proclaim our names — our name, I might say — ■ 
a name that was once so honoured and beloved in this town, 
and which is now so hated !” 

“ No, no ; not as bad as that. We have done nothing 
to merit hatred.” 

“ Raison de plus for hating us so much the more heartily. 
When men are wronged, who have done nothing to des^erve 
it, the evil-doer seeks to justify his wickedness to himself 
by striving all he can to calumniate the injured party ; and 
the more difficulty he finds in doing that to his mind, the 
more profound is his hatred. Rely on it, we are most sin- 
cerely disliked here, on the spot where we were once both 
much beloved. Such is human nature.” 

At that moment John returned to the room, to see how 
we were getting on, and to count his forks and spoons, for 
I saw the fellow actually doing it. My uncle, somewhat 
indiscreetly, I fancied, but by merely following the chain 
of thought then uppermost in his mind, detained him in con- 
versation. 

“ Dis broperty,” he said, inquiringly, “ is de broperty of 
one Yeneral Littlepage, I hears say?” 

“ Not of the General, who was Madam Littlepage’s hus- 
band, and who has long been dead, but of his grandson, Mr. 
Hugh.” 

“ Und vhere might he be, dis Mr. Hugh ? — might he be 
at hand, or might he not?” 

“ No ; he ’s in Europe ; that is to say, in Hengland.” 
John thought England covered most of Europe, though he 
had long gotten over his wish to return. “ Mr. Hugh and 
Mr. Roger be both habsent from the country, just no'w.” 

“ Dat isl unfortunate, for 'dey dells me dere might be 
moch troobles here abouts, ahd Injin-acting.” 

“There is, indeed; and a wicked thing'^ it is, that there 
should be anything of the sort.” 

“ Und vhat might be der reason of so moch troobles? — 
and vhere ist der blame?” 

“ Well, that is pretty plain, I fancy,” returned John, who, 
in consequence of being a favoured servant at head-quarters. 
fancied himself a sort of cabinet minister, and had muc« 



THE REDSKINS. 


173 

pleasure in letting his knowledge be seen. “The tenants 
j wi this estate wants to be landlords; and as they can’t bo 
j so, so long as Mr. Hugh lives and won’t let ’em, why they 
j just tries all sorts of schemes and plans to frighted people 
out of their property. I never go down to the village but I 
j fias a talk with some of them, and that in a way that mi^ht 
do them some good, if anything can.” 

I “ Und vhat dost you say ? — und'vid whom dost you talk, 
j as might do dem moch goot 1” 

“ Why, you see, I talks more with one ’Squire Newcome, 
as they calls him, though he’s no more of a real ’squire 
than you be — only a sort of an attorney, like, such as they 
has in this country. You come from the old countries, I 
believe ?” 

“ Ja, ja — dat ist, yes — we comes from Charmany ; so you 
can say vhat you bleases.” 

! “They has queer ’squires in this part of the world, if 
truth must be said. But that ’s neither here nor there, though 
j I give this Mr. Seneca Newcome as good as he sends. What 
! is it you wants, I says to him? — you can’t all be landlords 
— somebody must be tenants ; and if you didn’t want to be 
tenants, how come you to be so? Land is plenty in this 
country, and cheap too; and why didn’t you buy your land 
at first, instead of coming to rent of Mr. Hugh ; and now 
when you have rented, to be quarrelling about the very 
thing you did of your own accord?” 

“Here you didst dell ’em a goot t’ing; and vhat might 
der ’Squire say to dat ?” 

“ Oh ! he was quite dumb-founded, at first ;‘ then he said 
that in old times, when people first rented these lands, they 
didn’t know as much as they do now, or they never would 
have done it.” 

“ Und you could answer dat ; or vast it your durn to be 
dum-founded ?” 

“I pitched it into him, as they says; I did. Says I, 
how’s this, says I — you are for ever boasting how much 
you Americans know — and how the people knows every- 
thing that ought to be done, about politics and religion — and 
you proclaim far and near that your yeomen are the salt of 
the earth — and yet you don’t know how to bargain for your 
\eases ! A pretty sort of wisdom is this, sa^ I ! 1 had him 
15 * ^ 

— 


THE REDSKINS. 


174 

there ; for the people round about here is only too sharp at 
a trade,” 

“ Di(i he own dat you vast right, and dat he vast wrong, 
dis Herr ’Squire Newcome ?” 

“ Not he ; he will never own anything that makes against 
his own doctrine, unless he does it ignorantly. But I haven’t 
told you half of it. I told him, says I, how is it you talk 
of one of the Littlepage family cheating you, when, as you 
knows yourselves, you had rather have the word of one of 
that family than have each other’s bonds, says I. You 
know, sir, it must be a poor landlord that a tenant can’t and 
won’t take his word: and this they all know to be true; 
for a gentleman as has a fine estate is raised above tempta- 
tion, like, and has a pride in him to do what is honourable 
and fair; and, in my opinion, it is good to have a few such 
people in a country, if it be only to keep the wicked one 
from getting it altogether in his own keeping.” 

“ Und did you say dat.moch to der ’Squire 1” 

‘‘ No ; that I just says to you two, seeing that we are 
here, talking together in a friendly way; but a man needn’t 
be ashamed to say it anywhere, for it ’s a religious truth. 
But I says to him, Newcome, says I, you, who has been 
living so long on the property of the Littlepages, ought to 
be ashamed to wish to strip them of it ; but you ’re not satis- 
fied with keeping gentlemen down quite as much out of 
sight as you can, by holding all the offices yourselves, and 
taking all the money of the public you can lay your hands 
on for your own use, but you wants to trample them under 
your feet, I says, and so take your revenge for being what 
3 ^ 0 u be, says I.”' 

“ Veil, my friend,” said my uncle, “ you vast a bolt man 
to dell all dis to der beoples of dis coontry, vhere, I have 
heard, a man may say just vhat he hast a mind to say, so 
dat he dost not sbeak too moch trut !” 

“That’s it — that’s it; you have been a quick scholar, I 
find. I told this Mr. Newcome, says Fj you’re bold enough 
in railing at kings and nobles, for you very well know, says 
I, that they are three thousand miles away from you, and 
can do you no harm ; but you would no more dare get up 
before your masters, the people, here, and say what you 
really think about ’em, and what I have heard you say of 


THE REDSKINS. 


175 


i .hem in private, than you would dare put your head before 
; a cannon, as the gunner touched it off. Oh ! I gave him a 
lesson, you may be sure !” • 

i Although there was a good deal of the English footman in 
i John’s logic and feeling, there was also a good deal of truth 
I in what he said. The part where he accused Newcome of 
holding one set of opinions in private, concerning fiis mas- 
ters, and another in public, is true to the life. There is not, 
at this moment, within the wide reach of the American bor- 
ders, one demagogue to be found who might not, with jus- 
tice, be accused of precisely the same deception. There is 
not one demagogue in the whole country, who, if he lived 
in a monarchy, would not be the humblest advocate of men 
in power, ready to kneel at the feet of those who stood in 
the sovereign’s presence. There is not, at this instant, a 
man in power among us a senator or a legislator, who is 
I now the seeming advocate of what he wishes to call the 

j rights of the tenants, and who is for overlooking principles 

! and destroying law and right, in order to pacify the anti- 
I renters by extraordinary concessions, that would not be 
! among the foremost, under a monarchial system, to recom- 
j mend and support the freest application of the sword and the 
j bayonet to suppress what would then be viewed, ay, and be 
I termed, “ the rapacious longings of the disafiecled to enjoy 
the property of others without paying for it.” All this is 
I certain; for it depends on a law of morals that is infallible, 
j Any one who wishes to obtain a clear index to the true cha- 
i racters of the public men he is required to support, or op- 
j pose, has now the opportunity ; for each stands before a 
I mirror that reflects him in his just proportions, and in which 
j the dullest eye has only to cast a glance, in order to view 
him from head to foot. 

The entrance of my grandmother put a stop to John’s 
I discourse. He was sent out of the room on a message, and 
I then I learned the object of this visit. My sister had been 
j let into the secret of our true characters, and was dying to 
embrace me. My dear grandmother, rightly enough, had 
decided it would be to the last degree unkind to keep her in 
ignorance of our presence; and, the fact known, nature had 
iongings which must be appeased. I had myself been 


176 THE REDSKINS. 

tempted twenty times, that morning, to snatch Patt fo my 
heart and kiss her, as I used to do just after my beard be- i 
gan to grow, and she was so much of a child as to complain. I 
The principal thing to be arranged, then, was to obtain an ■ 
interview for me without awakening suspicion in the ob- ! 
servers. My grandmother’s plan was arranged, however, | 
and she now communicated it to us. ^ j 

There was a neat little dressing-room annexed to Mar- ! 
tha’s bed-room ; in that the meeting was to take place. ! 

“ She and Mary Warren are now there, waiting for your ' 

appearance, Hugh ” i 

“ Mary Warren ! — Does she, then, know who I am?” j 
“ Not in the least ; she has no other idea than that you i 
are a young German, of good connections and well educated, | 
who has been driven from his own country by political trou- I 

bles, and who is reduced to turn his musical taste and ac- I 

quisitions to account, in the way you seem to do, until he j 
can find some better employment. All this she had told us j 

before we met you, and you are not to be vain, Hugh, if I | 

add, that your supposed misfortunes, and great skill with | 
the flute, and good behaviour, have made a friend of one of j 

the best and most true-hearted girls I ever had the good for- | 

tune to know. I say good behaviour^ for little, just now, i 
can be ascribed to good looks' \ 

“ I hope I am not in the least revolting in appearance, in 

this disguise. For my sister’s sake ” 

The hearty laugh of my dear oJd grandmother brought 
me up, and I said no more ; colouring, I believe, a little, at 
my own folly. Even uncle Ro joined in the mirth, though 
I could see he wished Mary Warren even safely translated 
along with her father, and that the latter was Archbishop of 
Canterbury. I must acknowledge that I felt a good deal 
ashamed of the weakness I had betrayed. 

“ You are very well, Hugh, darling,” continued my grand- 
mother ; “ though I must think you would be more interest- 
ing in your own hair, which is curling, than in that lank 
wig. Still, one can see enough of your face to recognise | 
it, if one has the clue; and I told Martha, at the first, that j 
I was struck with a certain expression of the eyes and smile ! 
that reminded me of her brother. But, there they are, Mary j 


THE REDSKINS, 177 

and Martha, in the drawing-room, waiting for your appear- 
ance. The first is so fond of music, and, indeed, is so prac- 
tised in it, as to have been delighted with your flute ; and 
she has talked so much of your skill as to justify us in seem- 
ing to wish for a further exhibition of your skill. Henrietta 
and Ann, having less taste that way, have gone' together 
to select bouquets, in the green-house, and there is now an 
excellent opportunity to gratify your sister. I am to draw 
Mary out of the room, after a little while, when you and 
Martha may say a word to each other in your proper cha- 
racters. As for you, Roger, you are to open your box 
again, and I will answer for it that will serve to amuse your 
other wards, should they return too soon from their visit to 
the gardener.” 

Everything being thus explained, and our dinner ended, 
all parties proceeded to the execution of the plan, each in 
his or her designated mode. When my grandmother and I 
reached the dressing-room, however, Martha was not there, 
though Mary Warren was, her bright but serene eyes full 
of happiness and expectation. Martha had retired to the 
inner room for a moment, whither my grandmother, sus- 
pecting the truth, followed her. As I afterwards ascer- 
tained, my sister, fearful of not being able to suppress her 
tears on my entrance, had withdrawn, in order to struggle 
for self-command without betraying our secret. I was told 
to commence an air, without waiting for the absent young 
lady, as the strain could easily be heard through the open 
door. 

I might have played ten minutes before my sister and 
grandmother came out again. Both had been in tears, 
though the intense manner in which Mary Warren was oc- 
cupied with the harmony of my flute, probably prevented 
her from observing it. To me, however, it was plain enough ; 
and glad was I to find that my sister had succeeded in com- 
manding her feelings. In a minute or two my grandmother 
profited by a pause to rise and carry away with her Mary 
Warren, though the last left the room with a reluctance that 
was very manifest. The pretence was a promise to meet 
the divine in the library, on some business connected with 
the Sunday-schools. 



ITS THE REDSKINS. 

“ You can keep the young man for another air, Martha,’* 
observed my grandmother, “ and I will send Jane to you, 
as I pass her room.” 

Jane was my sister’s own maid, and her room was close 
at hand, and I dare say dear grandmother gave her the order, 
in Mary Warren’s presence, as soon as she quitted the room, 
else might Mary Warren well be surprised at the singularity 
of the whole procedure; but Jane did not make her appear- 
ance, nevertheless. As for myself, I continued to play as 
long as I thought any ear was near enough to hear me ; 
then I laid aside my flute. In the next instant Patt was in 
my arms, where she lay some time weeping, but looking 
inexpressibly happy. 

“ Oh ! Hugh, what a disguise was this to visit your own 
house in !” she said, as soon as composed enough to speak. 

“Would it have done to come here otherwise? You 
know the state of the country, and the precious fruits our 
boasted tree of liberty is bringing forth. The owner of the 
land can only visit his property at the risk of his life!” 

Martha pressed me in her arms in a way to show how 
conscious she was of the danger I incurred in even thus vi- 
siting her ; after which we seated ourselves, side by side, 
on a little divan, and began to speak of those things that 
were most natural to a brother and sister who so much loved 
each other, and who had not met for five years. My grand- 
mother had managed so well as to prevent all interruption 
for an hour, if we saw fit to remain together, while to others 
it should seem as if Pat had dismissed me in a few minutes. 

“ Not one of the other girls suspect, in the least, who you 
are,” s|^d Martha, smiling, when we had got through with 
the quescions and answers so natural to our situation. “ I 
am surprised that Henrietta has not, for she prides herself 
on her penetration. She is as much in the dark as the 
others, however.” 

“ And Miss Mary Warren — the young lady who has just 
left the room — has she not some small notion that I am not 
a common Dutch music-grinder?” 

Patt laughed, and that so merrily as to cause the tones 
of her sweet voice to fill me with delight, as I remembered 
what she had been in childhood and girlhood five years be* 


THE REDSKINS. .79 

fore, and she shook her bright tresses off her cheeks ere she 
would answer. 

. “ No, Hugh,” she replied, ^she fancies you an uncomvion 
Dutch music-grinder]| ^ artiste that not only grihds,‘“but 
who dresses up his harmonies in such a way as to be pa- 
latable to the most refined tastdi^ How came Mary to think 
you and my uncle two reduced German gentlemon 

“ And does the dear girl believe — that is, does Miss Mary 
Warren do us so much honour, as to imagine that?” 

Indeed she does, for she told us as much as soon as she 
got home; and Henrietta and Ann have made themselves 
very merry with their speculations on the subject of Miss 
Warren’s great incognito. They call you Herzog von 
Geige.” 

“ Thank them for that.” I am afraid I answered a little 
too pointedly, for I saw that Palt seemed surprised. “ But 
your American towns are just such half-way things as to 
spoil young women ; making them neither refined and po- 
lished as they might be in real capitals, while they are not 
left the simplicity and nature of the country.” 

“ Well, Master Hugh, this is being very cross about a 
very little, and not particularly complimentary to your own 
sister. And why not your American towns, as well as 
ours 1 — are you no longer one of us ?” 

“ Certainly ; one of yours, always, my dearest Patt, 
though not one of every chattering girl who may set up for 
a belle, with her Dukes of Fiddle ! But, enough of this ; 
— you like the Warrens?” 

“ Very much so ; father and daughter. The first is just 
what a clergyman should be ; of a cultivation anct^intelli- 
gence to fit him to be any man’s companion, and a^simpli- 
city like that of a child. You remember his predecessor — 
so dissatisfied, so selfish, so lazy, so censorious, so unjust 
to every person and thing around him, and yet so exacting; 
and, at the same time, so ” 

“ What? Thus far you have drawn his character well ; 
1 should like to hear the remainder.” 

“ I have said more than I ought already ; for one has an 
idea that, by bringing a clergyman into disrepute, it brings 
religion and the church into discredit, too. A priest must 


THE REDSKINS. 


180 

be a nery bad man to have injurious things said of him, in 
this country, Hugh.” 

“ That is, perhaps, true. But you like Mr. Warren better 
than him who has left you ?” 

“ A thousand times, and in all things. In addition to 
having a most pious and sincere pastor, we have an agree- 
able and well-bred neighbour, from whose mouth, in the five 
years that he has dwelt here, I have not heard a syllable at 
the expense of a single fellow-creature. You know how it 
is apt to be with the other clergy and ours, in the country — 
for ever at swords’ points; and if not actually quarrelling, 
keeping up a hollow peace.” 

“ That is only too true — or used to be true, before I went 
abroad.” 

“ And it is so now, elsewhere, I ’ll answer for it, though 
it be so no longer here. Mr. Warren and Mr. Peck seem 
to live on perfectly amicable terms, though as little alike at 
bottom as fire and water.” 

“ By the way, how do the clergy of the different sects, up 
and down the country, behave on the subject of anti-rent ?” 

“ I can answer only from what I hear, with the exception 
of Mr. Warren’s course. He has preached two or three 
plain and severe sermons on the duty of honesty in our 
worldly transactions, one of which was from the tenth com- 
mandment. Of course he said nothing of the particular 
trouble, but everybody must have made the necessary ap- 
plication of the home-truths he uttere.d. I question if ano- 
' ther voice has been raised, far and near, on the subject, 
although I have heard Mr. Warren say the movement 
threatens more to demoralize New York than anything that 
has happened in his time.” 

‘‘And the man down at the village?” 

“ Oh, he goes, of course, with the majority. When was 
one of that set ever known to oppose his parish, in any- 
thing?” 

“ And Mary is as sound and as high-principled as her 
father?” 

“ Quite so ; though there has been a good deal said about 
the necessity of Mr. Warren’s removing, and giving up St. 
Andrew’s, since he preached against covetousness. All the 


THE REDSKINS. 181 

anti-renters say, I hear, that they know he meant iherrif and 
I that they won’t put up with it.” 

I “ I dare say ; each one fancying he was almost called out 
I by name : that is the way, when conscience works.” 

I should be very, very sorry to part with Mary; and 

j almost as much so to part with her father. There is one 
I thing, however, that Mr. Warren himself thinks we had bet- 
1 ter have done, Hugh ; and that is to take down the canopy 
I from over cur pew. You can have no notion of the noise 
1 that foolish canopy is making up and down the country.” 

I “ I shall not take it down. It is my property, and there 
! it shall remain. As for the canopy, it was a wrong distinc- 
tion to place in a church, I am willing to allow ; but it never 
gave offence until it has been thought that a cry against it 
! would help to rob me of my lands at half price, or at no 
1 price at all, as it may happen.” 

I “ All that may be true ; but if improper for a church, why 
I keep it?” 

I “ Because I do not choose to be bullied out of what is my 
own, even though I care nothing about it. There might 
have been a time when the canopy was unsuited to the 
house of God, and that was when those who saw it might 
fancy it canopied the head of a fellow-creature who had 
higher claims than themselves to divine favour; but, in 
' times like these, when men estimate merit by beginning at 
the other end of the social scale, there is little danger of 
any one’s falling into the mistake. The canopy shall stand, 
liitle as I care*^about it: now, I would actually prefer it 
I should come down, as I can fully see the impropriety of 
I making any distinctions in the temple; but it shall stand 

I until concessions cease to ‘be dangerous. It is a right of 

I property, and as such I will maintain it. If others dislike 

I it, let them put canopies over their pews, too. The best 
I . test, in such a matter, is to sec who could bear it. A pretty 
I figure Seneca Newcome would cut, for instance, seated in 
! a canopied pew ! Even his own set would laugh at him, 

I which, I fancy, is more than they yet do at me.” 

' Martha was disappointed ; but she changed the subject. 

I We next talked of our own little private affairs, as they 
I were connected with smaller matters. ^ • t, t 

“For whom is that beautiful chain intended, Hugh. 
VoL. I. — 16 


THE REDSKINS. 


182 

asked Patt, laughingly. “I can now believe the pedlar 
when he says it is reserved for your future wife. But who 
is that wife to be? Will her name be Henrietta or Ann ?” 

“ Why not ask, also, if it will be Mary? — why exclude 
one of your companions, while you include the other two?” 

Patt started — seemed surprised ; her cheeks fkished, and 
then I saw that pleasure was the feeling predominant. 

“ Am I too late to secure that jewel, as a pendant to my 
chain?” I asked, half in jest, half seriously. 

“ Too soon, at least, to attract it by the richness and 
beauty of the bauble. A more natural and disinterested 
girl than Mary Warren does not exist in the country.” 

“ Be frank with me, Martha, and say at once ;• has she a 
favoured suitor ?” 

“ Why, this seems really serious !” exclaimed my sister, 
laughing. “ But, to put you out of your pain, I will answer, 
I know of but one. One she has certainly, or female sa- 
gacity is at fault.” 

“ But is he one that is favoured ? You can never know 
how much depends on your answer.” 

“ Of that you can judge for yourself. It is/Squire Se- 
neky Newcome, as he is called hereabouts — the brother of 
the charming Opportunity, who still reserves herself for 
you.” 

“ And they are as rank anti-renters as any male and fe- 
male in the country.” 

“ They are rank Newcomites ; and that means that each 
is for himself. Would you believe it, but Opportunity really 
gives herself airs with Mary Warren !” 

“And how does Mary Warren take such an assump- 
tion ?” 

“ As a young person should — quietly and without mani- 
festing any feeling. But there is something quite intolerable 
in one like Opportunity Newcome’s assuming a superiority 
over any true lady ! Mary is as well educated and as well 
connected as any of us, and is quite as much accustomed to 
good company ; while Opportunity—” here Patt laughbd, 
and then added, hurriedly, “ but you know Opportunity as 
well as I do.” 

“Oh! yes; she is Za vertue, or i/te virtue, and Je suis 
venue, pour.'*'* 


THE REDSKINS. 


183 

The latter allusion Palt understood well enough, having 
.aughed over the story a dozen times ; and she laughed again 
when I explained the affair of “ the solitude.” 

Then came a fit of sisterly feeling. Patt insisted on taking 
off my wig, and seeing my face in its natural dress. I 
consented to gratify her, when the girl really behaved like a 
simpleton. First she pushed about my curls until they were 
arranged to suit the silly creature, when she ran back seve- 
ral steps, clapped her hands in delight, then rushed into my 
arms and kissed my forehead and eyes, and called me “ her 
brother” — her “ only brother” — her “ dear, dear Hugh,” 
and by a number of other such epithets, until she worked 
herself, and me too, into such an excess of feeling that we 
sat down, side by side, and each had a hearty fit of crying. 
Perhaps some such burst as this was necessary to relieve 
our minds, and we submitted to it wisely. 

My sister wept the longest, as a matter of course ; but, 
as soon as she had dried her eyes, she replaced the wig, and 
completely restored my disguise, trembling the whole time 
lest some one might enter and detect me. 

“ You have been very imprudent, Hugh, in coming here 
at all,” she said, while thus busy. “ You can form no no- 
tion of the miserable state of the country, or how far the 
anti-rent poison has extended, or the malignant nature of 
its feeling. The annoyances they have attempted with dear 
grandmother are odious; you they would scarcely leave 
alive.” 

“ The country and the people must have strangely altered, 
then, in five years. Our New York population has hitherto 
had very little of the assassin-like character. Tar and fea- 
thers are the blackguards’, and have been the petty tyrants’ 
weapons, from time immemorial, in this country ; but not 
the knife.” 

“ And can anything sooner or more effectually alter a 
people than longings for the property of others 1 Is not the 
- love of money the root of all evil?’ — and what right have 
we to suppose our Ravensnest population is better than ano- 
I ther, when that sordid feeling is thoroughly aroused ? You 
know you have written me yourself, that all the American 
can or does live for is money.” 

“ I have written you, dear, that the country, in its pre- 


THE REDSKINS. 


184 

sent condition, leaves no other incentive to exertion, and 
therein it is cursed. Military fame, military rank, even, 
are unattainable, under our system : the arts, letters and 
science, bring little or no reward ; and there being no poli- 
litical rank that a man of refinement would care for, men 
must live for money, or live altogether for another state of 
being. But I have told you, at the same time, Martha, that, 
notwithstanding all this, I believe the American a less mer- 
cenary being, in the ordinary sense of the word, than the 
European ; that tv/o men might be bought, for instance, in j 
any European country, for one here. This last I suppose 
to be the result of the facility of making a living, and the 
habits it produces.” 

“ Never mind causes ; Mr. Warren says there is a des- 
perate intention to rob existing among these people,. and that 
they are dangerous. As yet they do a little respect womeu, 
but hov/ long they will do that one cannot know.” 

“ It may all be so. It 7nt/sf be so, respecting what I have 
heard and read ; yet this vale looks as smiling and as sweet, 
at this very moment, as if an evil passion never sullied it! 
But, depend on my prudence, which tells me that we ought 
now to part. I shall see you again and again before I quit 
the estate, and you will, of course,, join us somewhere — at 
the Springs, perhaps — as soon as we find it necessary or 
expedient to decamp.” 

Martha promised this, of course, and I kissed her, pre- 
viously to separating. No one crossed my way as I de- 
scended to the piazza, which was easily done, since I was 
literally at home. I lounged about on the lawn a few mi- 
nutes, and then, showing myself in front of the library win- 
dows, I was summoned to the room, as I had expected. 

Uncle Ro had disposed of every article of the fine jewelry 
that he had brought home as presents for his wards. The 
pay was a matter to be arranged with Mrs. Littlepage, 
which meant no pay at all ; and, as the donor afterwards 
told me, he liked this mode of distributing the various orna- 
ments better than presenting them himself, as he was now | 
certain each girl had consulted her own fancy. | 

As the hour of the regular dinner was approaching, we | 
look our leave soon after, not without receiving kincT and 
pressing invitations to visit the Nest again erc° ve left the 


THE R E D S K'l N S , 


185 

township, or course we promised all that was required, 
j intending most faithfully to comply. On quitting the house 
we returned towards the farm, though not without pausing 
on the lawn to gaze around us on a scene so dear to both, 
from recollection, association, and interest. But I forget, 
this is aristocratical ; the landlord has no right to senti- 
ments of this nature, which are feelings that the sublimated 
liberty of the law is beginning to hold in reserve solely for 
the benefit of the tenant ! 

I 

I 


CHAPTER XII. 


“ There shall be, in England, aeven half-penny loaves sold for a 
penny: the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make 
it felony to drink small beer : all the realm shall be in common, and 
in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass.” 

Jack Cade. 

“ I DO not see, sir,” I remarked, as we moved on from 
the last of these pauses, “ why the governors and legisla- 
tors, and writers on this subject of anti-rentism, talk so 
much of feudality, and chickens, and days’ works, and du- 
rable leases, when we have none of these, while we have 
all the disaffection they are said to produce.” 

“ You will understand that better as you come to know 
more of men. No party alludes to its weak points. It is 
just as you say ; but the proceedings of your tenants, for 
instance, give the lie to the theories of the philanthropists, 
and must be kept in the back-ground. It is true that the 
disaffection has not yet extended to one-half, or to one-fourth 
of the leased estates in the country, perhaps not to one-tenth, 
if you take the number of the landlords as the standard, in- 
stead of the extent of their possessions, but it certainly will, 
should the authorities tamper with the rebels much longer.” 

“ If they tax the incomes of the landlords under the dura- 
ble rent system, why would not the parties aggrieved have 
16 * 


186 the REDSKINS. j 

the same right to take up arms to resist such an act of op- ' 
pression as our fathers had, in 1776 

“ Their cause would be better; for that was only a con. 
structive right, and one dependent on general principles, 
whereas this is an attempt at a most mean evasion of a writ- ; 
ten law, the meanness of the attempt being quite as culpable | 
as its fraud. Every human being knows that such a tax, i 
so far as it has any object beyond that of an election-sop, 1 
is to choke off the landlords from the naaintenance of their | 
covenants, which is a thing that no State can do directly, 1 
without running the risk of having its law pronounced un- j 
constitutional by the courts of the United Slates, if, indeed, 
not by its own courts.” 

“ The Court of Errors, think you ?” 

“ The Court of Errors is doomed, by its own abuses. 
Catiline never abused the patience of Rome more than that 
rhongrel assembly has abused the patience of every sou’nd’ 
lawyer in the State. “ Fiat justitia, ruat coelum,” is inter- 
preted, now, into “ Let justice be done, and the court fall.” 

No one wishes to see it continued, and the approaching con- 
vention will send it to the Capulets, if it do nothing else to 
be commended. It was a pitiful imitation of the House of 
Lords system, with this striking difference : the English 
lords are men of education, and men with a vast deal at 
stake, and their knowledge and interests teach them to leave 
the settlement of appeals to the legal men of their body, of 
whom there are always a respectable number, in addition 
to those in possession of the woolsack and the bench ; 
W'hereas our Senate is a court composed of small lawyers, 
country doctors, merchants, farmers, with occasionally a 
man of really liberal attainments. Under the direction of 
an acute and honest judge, as most of our true judges actu- 
ally are, the Court of Errors would hardly form such a jury 
as would allow a creditable person to be tried by his peers, 
in a case affecting character, for instance, and here we have 
it set up as a court of the last resort, to settle points of 
law!” 

“ I see it has just made a decision in a libel suit, at which 
the profession sneers.” 

“ It has, indeed. Now look at that very decision, for in- 
stance, as the measure of its knowledge. An editor of a 


THE REDSKINS. 187 

newspaper holds up a literary man to the world as one anx- 
ious to obtain a small sum of money, in order to put it into 
Wall street, for ‘ shaving purposes.’ Now, the only ma- 
terial question raised was the true signification of the word 
shaving.’ If to say a man is a ‘shaver,’ in the sense 
in which it is applied to the use of money, be bringing him 
into discredit, then was the plaintiff’s declaration sufficient ; 
if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what is called an 
‘ innuendo.’ The dictionaries, and men in general, under- 
stand by ‘ shaving,’ ‘ extortion,’ and nothing else. To 
call . a nian a ‘ shaver’ is to say he is an ‘ extortioner,’ with- 
out going into details. But, in Wall street, and among mo- 
ney-dealerS) certain transactions that, in their eyes, and by 
the courts, are not deemed discreditable, have of late been 
brought within the category of ‘ shaving.’ Thus it is tech- 
nically, or by convention among brokers, termed “ shaving” 
if a man buy a note at less than its face, which is a legal 
transaction. On the strength of this last circumstance, as 
is set forth in the 'published opinions, the highest Court of 
Appeals in New York has decided it does not bring a man 
into discredit to say he is a ‘ shaver !’ — thus making a con- 
ventional signification of the brokers of Wall street higher 
authority for the use of the English tongue than the standard 
lexicographers, and all the rest of those who use the lan- 
guage ! On the same principle, if a set of pick-pockets, at 
the Five Points, should choose to mystify their trade a little 
by including in the term ‘ to filch’ the literal borrowing of 
a pocket-handkerchief, it would not be a libel to accuse a 
citizen of ‘filching his neighbour’s handkerchief!”’ 

“ But the libel was uttered to the 'world, and not to the 
brokers of Wall street only, who might possibly understand 
their own terms.” 

“ Very true ; and was uttered in a newspaper that car- 
ried the falsehood to Europe; for the writer of the charge, 
when brought up for it, publicly admitted that he had no 
ground for suspecting the literary man of any such prac- 
tices. called it a ^johe' Every line of the context, 

however, showed it was a malicious charge. The decision 
is very much as if a man who is sued for accusing another 
of ‘ stealing’ should set up a defence that he meant ‘ stealing’ 
hearts, for the word is sometimes used in that sense. When 


— 


188 THE REDSKINS. 

men use epithets that convey discredit in their general mean. 7 
ing, it is their business to give them a special signification 
in their own contexts, if such be their real intention. But 
I much question if there be a respectable money-dealer, even 
in Wall street, who would not swear, if called on in a court 
of justice so to do, that he thought the general charge of 
* shaving’ discreditable to any man.” 

“ And you think the landlords whose rents were taxed, 
sir, would have a moral right to resist?” 

“ Beyond all question ; as it would be an income tax on 
them only, of all in the country. What is more, I am fully 
persuaded that two thousand men embodied to resist such 
tyranny would look down the whole available authority of 
the State ; inasmuch as I do not believe citizens could be 
found to take up arms to enforce a law so flagrantly unjust. 
•Men will look on passively and see wrongs inflicted, that 
would never come out to support them by their own acts. 
But we are approaching the farm, and there is Tom Miller 
and his hired men waiting our arrival.” 

It is unnecessary to repeat, in detail, ail that passed in 
this our second visit to the farm-house. Miller received us 
in a friendly manner, and offered us a bed, if we would pass 
the night with him. This business of a bed had given us 
more difficulty than anything else, in the course of our pe- 
regrinations. New York has long got over the “ two-man” 
'and “ three-man bed” system, as regards its best inns. At 
no respectable New York inn is a gentleman now asked to 
share even his room, without an apology and a special ne- 
cessity, with another, much less his bed ; but the rule does 
not hold good as respects pedlars and music-grinders. We 
had ascertained that we were not only expected to share 
the same bed, but to occupy that bed in a room filled with 
other beds. There are certain things that get to be second 
nature, and that no masquerading will cause to go down ; 
and, among others, one gets to dislike sharing his room and 
his tooth-brush. This little difficulty gave us more trouble 
that night, at Tom Miller’s, than anytliing we had yet en- 
countered. At the taverns, bribes had answered our pur- 
pose; but this would not do so well at a farm residence. 

At length the matter was got along with by putting me in 
the garret, where I was favoured with a straw bed under 


THE REDSKINS. 189 

my own roof, the decent Mrs. Miller making many apolo- 
gies for not having a feather-smothercr, in which to “ squash” 
me. I did not tell the good woman that I never used fea- 
thers, summer or winter ; for, had I done so, she would have 
set me down as a poor creature from “ oppressed” Germany, 
where the “ folks” did not know how to live. Nor would 
she have been so much out of the way quoad the beds, for 
in all my journeyings I never met with such uncomfortable 
sleeping as one finds in Germany, off the Rhine and out of 
the large towns.^ 

While the negotiation was in progress I observed that 
Josh Brigham, as the anti-rent disposed hireling of Miller’s 
was called, kept a watchful eye and an open ear on what 
was done and said. Of all men on earth, the American of 
that class is the most “ distrustful,” as he calls it-himself, 
and has his suspicions the soonest awakened. The Indian 
on the war-path — the sentinel who is posted in a fog, near 
his enemy, an hour before the dawn of day — the husband 
that is jealous, or the priest that has become a partisan, is 
not a whit more apt to fancy, conjecture, or assert, than the 
American of that class who has become “ distrustful.” This 
fellow, Brigham, was the very beau ideal of the suspicious 
school, being envious and malignant, as well as shrewd, 
observant, and covetous. The very fact that he was con- 
nected with the “ Injins,” ns turned out to be the case, added 
to his natural propensities the consciousness of guilt, and 
rendered him doubly dangerous. The whole time my uncle 
and myself were crossing over and figuring in, in order to 
procure for each a room, though it were only a closet, his 
watchful, distrustful looks denoted how much he saw in our 
movements to awaken curiosity, if not downright suspicion. 
When all was over, he followed me to the little lawn in 
front of the house, whither I had gone to look at the fami- 
liar scene by the light of the setting sun, and began to bo^ 
tray the nature of his own suspicions by his language. 

“ The old man” (meaning my uncle Ro) “ must have 
plenty of gold watches about him,” he said, “ to be so plaguy 

* As the “honourable gentleman from Albany” does not seem to 
understand the precise signification of “ provincial,” I can tell him that 
one sign of such a character is to admire a bed at an American coun- 
try inn. — E ditok. 


THE REDSKINS. 


190 

partic’lar consarnin’ his bed. Pedlin’ sich matters is a tick 
lish trade, I guess, in some parts?’ 

“ Ja ; it ist dangerous somevhere, but it might not be so 
in dis goot coontry.” • 

“ Why did the old fellow, then, try so hard to got that 
little room all to himself, and shove you off into the garret? 
We hired men don’t like the garret, which is a hot place in 
summer.” 

“ In Charmany one man hast ever one bed,” I answered, 
anxious to get rid of the subject. 

I bounced a little, as “ one has one-half of a bed” would 
be nearer to the truth, though the other half might be in 
another room. 

“Oh! that’s it, is’t? Wa-a-1, every country has its 
ways, f s’pose. Jarmany is a desp’ate aristocratic land, I 
take it.” 

“ Ja ; dere ist moch of de old feudal law, and feudal coos- 
tum still remaining in Charmany.” 

“Landlords a plenty, I guess, if the truth was known. 
Leases as long as my arm, I calkerlate?” 

“Veil, dey do dink, in Charmany, dat de longer might 
De de lease, de better it might be for de denant.” 

As that was purely a German sentiment, or at least not 
an American sentiment, according to the notions broached 
by statesmen among ourselves, I made it as Dutch as pos- 
sible by garnishing it well with d’s. 

“ That ’s a droll idee I Now, we think, here, that a lease 
is a bad thing ; and the less you have of a bad thing, the 
better.” 

“ Veil, dat ist queer ; so queer ast I don’t know ! Vhat 
vill dey do as might help it?’ 

“Oh ! the Legislature will set it all right. They mean 
to pass a law to prevent any more leases at all.” 

“ Und vill de beople stand dat 1 Dis ist a free coontry, 
eff^ry body dells me, and vilt der beoples agree not to hire 
lands if dey vants to?” 

“ Oh I you see we wish to choke the landlords off fVom 
their present leases; and, by and bye, when that is done, 
the law can let up again.” 

“ But ist dat right ? Der law should be joost, und not 
hold down und let oop, as you calls it.” 


the redskins. 191 

“You don’t understand us yet, I see. Why that’s tha 
prettiest and the neatest legislation on airth ! That’s just 
what the bankrupt law did.” 

“ Vhat did der bankroopt law do, bray? Vhat might you 
rxiean now ? — I don’t know.” 

“ Do! why it did wonders for some on us, I can tell yc«j ! 
It paid our debts, and let us up when we was down ; and 
that ’s no trifle, I can tell you. 1 took ‘ the benefit,’ as it is 
called, myself.” 

“You! — you might take der benefit of a bankroopt 
law ! You, fifing here ast a hiret man, on dis farm !” 

“ Sartain ; why not ? All a man wanted, under that law. 
was about $60 to carry him through the mill ; and if he 
could rake and scrape that much together, he might wipe 
off as long a score as he pleased. I had been dealin’ in 
speckylation, and that’s a make or break business, I can 
tell you. Well, I got to be about $423.22 wuss than no- 
thin’ ; but, having about $90 in hand, I went through the 
mill without getting cogged the smallest morsel ! A man 
doos a good business, to my notion, when he can make 20 
cents pay a whull dollar of debt.” 

“ Und you did dat goot business ?” 

“ You may say that ; and now I means to make anti- 
rentism get me a farm cheap — what I call cheap; and that 
an’t none of your $30 or $40 an acre, I can tell you !” 

It was quite clear that Mr. Joshua Brigham regarded 
these transactions as so many Pragmatic Sanctions, that 
were to clear the moral and legal atmospheres of any atoms 
of difficulty that might exist in the forms of old opinions, to 
his getting easily out of debt, in the one case, and suddenly 
rich in the other. I dare say I looked bewildered, but I 
certainly felt so, at thus finding myself face to face with a 
low knave, who had a deliberate intention, as I now found, 
to rob me of a farm. It is certain that Joshua so imagined, 
for, inviting me to walk down the road with him a short dis- 
tance, he endeavoured to clear up any moral difficulties that 
might beset me, by pursuing the subject. 

“ You see,” resumed Joshua, “ I will tell you how it is. 
These Littlepages have had this land long enough, and it ’s 
time to give poor folks a chance. The young spark that 
pretends to own all the farms you see, far and near, never 


THE REDSKINS. 


192 

did any thing for ’em in his life ; only to be his father^a 
son. Now, to my notion, a man should do suthin’ for his 
land, and not be obligated for it to mere natur’. This is a 
free country, and what right has one man to land more than 
another ?” 

“ Or do his shirt or do his dobacco, or do his coat, or do 
any ding else.” 

“ Well, I don’t go as far as that. A man has a right to 
his clothes, and maybe to a horse or a cow, but he has no 
right to all the land in creation. The law gives a right to 
a cow as ag’in’ execution.” 

“ Und doesn’t der law gif a right to der landt, too ? You 
most not depend on der law, if you might succeed.” 

“We like to get as much law as we can on our side. 
Americans like law : now, you ’ll read in all the books — ovr 
books, I mean, them that ’s printed here — that the Ameri- 
cans be the most lawful people on airth, and that they ’ll do 
more for the law than any other folks known !” 

“ Veil, dat isn’t vhat dey says of der Americans in Eu- 
rope; nein, nein, dey might not say dat.” 

“ Why, don’t you think it is so? Don’t you think this 
the greatest country on airth, and the most lawful?” 

“ Veil, I don’ts know. Das coontry ist das coontry, und 
it ist vhat it ist, you might see.” 

“Yes; I thought you would be of my way of thinking, 
when we got to understand eacji other.” Nothing is easier 
than to mislead an American on the estimate foreigners 
place on them : in this respect they are the most deluded 
people living, though, in other matters, certainly among the 
shrewdest. “That’s the way with acquaintances, at first; 
they don’t always understand one another: and then you 
talk a little thick, like. But now, friend, I ’ll come to the 
p’int — but first swear you ’ll not betray m.e.” 

“ Ja, ja — I oonderstandst ; I most schwear I won’t be- 
dray you : das ist goot.” 

“ But, hold up your hand. Stop ; of what religion be 
you ?” 

“ Gristian, to be sure. I might not be a Chew. Nein, 
nein ; I am a ferry bat Gristian.” 

“ We are all bad enough, for that matter ; but I lay no 
stress on that. A little of the devil in a man helps him 


THE REDSKINS. 193 

along, in this business of ourn. But you must be suthin’ 
more than a Christian, I s’pose, as we don’t call that bein’ 
of any religion at all, in this country. Of what supportin' 
religion be you ?” 

; “ Soobortin’ ; veil, I might not oonderstands dat. Vhat 

i ist soobortin’ religion ? Coomes dat vrom Melanchton und 
i Luther ? — or coomes it vrom der Pope? Vhat ist dat soo- 
I bortin’ religion ?” 

I “ Why, what religion do you patronize 7 Do you pa- 
] tronize the standin’ order, or the kneelin’ order? — or do 
I you patronize neither? Some folks thinks its best to lie 
I down at prayer, as the least likely to divart the thoughts.” 
j “ I might not oonderstand. But nefer mindt der religion, 
und coome to der p’int dat you mentioned.” 

“Well, that p’int is this. You’re a Jarman, and can’t 
like aristocrats, and so I ’ll trust you ; though, if you do 
betray me, you ’ll never play on another bit of music in this 
I country, or any other ! If you want to be an Injin, as good 
1 an opportunity will offer to-morrow as ever fell in a man’s 
I way !” 

“ An Injin ! Vhat goot vill it do to be an Injiri ? I 
dought it might be better to be a vhite man, in America?” 

I “ Oh ! I mean only an anti-rent Injin. We’ve got mat- 
i ters so nicely fixed now, that a chap can be an Injin with- 
j out any paint at alt, or any washin’ or scrubbin’, but can 
J convart himself into himself ag’in, at any time, in two mi- 
j nutes. The wages is good and the work light; then we 
j have rare chances in the stores, and round about among the 
1 farms. The law is that an Injin must have what he wants, 
( and no grumblin’, and we take care to want enough. If 
I you ’ll be at the meetin’, I ’ll tell you how you ’ll know me.” 
! “ Ja, ja — dat ist goot; I vill be at der meetin’, sartainly. 

: Vhere might it be?” 

i “ Down at the village. The word came up this a’ter- 
i noon, and we shall all be on the ground by ten o’clock.” 

' “ Vilt der be a fight, dat you meet so bunctually, and wid 

so moch spirit?” 

i “ Fight ! Lord, no ; who is there to fight, 1 should like to 
know? We are pretty much all ag’in the Littlepages, and 
; there ’s none of them on the ground but two or three wo- 
i men. I’ll tell you how it’s all settled. The meetin’ is 
! VoL. I.— 17 


194 THE llEDSKINS. 

called on the deliberative and liberty-supportin’ plan. I 
s’pose you know we ’ve all sorts of meetin’s in this coun- 
try ?” 

“ Nein ; I dought dere might be meetin’s for bolitics, 
vhen der beople might coome, but I don’t know vhat else.” 

“ Is ’t possible ! What, have you no ‘ indignation meetin’s’ 
in Jarmany? We count a great deal on our indignation 
meetin’s, and both sides have ’em in abundance, when things 
get to be warm. Our meetin’ to*morrow is for deliberation 
and liberty-principles generally. We may pass some indig- 
nation resolutions about aristocrats, for nobody can bear 
them critturs in this part of the country, I can tell you.” 

Lest this manuscript should get into the hands of some 
of those who do not understand the real condition of New 
York society, it may be well to explain that “ aristocrat” 
means, in the parlance of the country, no other than a man 
of gentleman-like tastes, habits, opinions and associations. 
There are gradations among the aristocracy of the State, as 
well as among other men. Thus he who is an aristocrat in 
a hamlet, would be very democratic in a village ; and he 
of the village might be no aristocrat in the town, at all ; 
though, in the towns generally, indeed always, when their 
population has the least of a town character, the distinction 
ceases altogether, men quietly dropping into the traces of 
civilized society, and talking or thinking very little about 
it. To see the crying evils of American aristocracy, then, 
one must go into the country. There, indeed, a plenty of 
cases exist. Thus, if there happen to be a man whose pro- 
perty is assessed at twenty-five per cent, above that of all 
his neighbours — who must have right on his side bright as 
a cloudless sun to get a verdict, if obliged to appeal to the 
laws — who pays fifty per cent, more for everything he 
buys, and receives fifty per cent, less for everything he 
sells, than any other person near him — who is surrounded 
by rancorous enemies, in the midst of a seeming state of 
peace — who has everything he says and does perverted, 
and added to, and lied about — who is traduced because his 
dinner-hour is later than that of “ other folks” — who don’t 
stoop, but is straight in the back — who presumes to doubt 
that this country in general, and his own township in par- 
licular, is the focus of civilization — who hesitates about 


THE REDSKINS. 


195 

signing his nanne to any flagrant instance of ignorance, bad 
taste, or worse morals, that his neighbours may get up in 
the shape of a petition, remonstrance, or resolution — depend 
on it that man is a prodigious aristocrat, and one who, for 
his many offences and manner of lording it over mankind, 
deserves to be banished. I ask the reader’s pardon for so 
abruptly breaking in upon Joshua’s speech, but such very 
different notions exist about aristocrats, in different parts of 
the world, that some such explanation was necessary in 
order to prevent mistakes. I have forgotten one mark of 
the tribe that is, perhaps, more material than all the rest, 
which must not be omitted, and is this: — If he happen to 
be a man who prefers his own pursuits to public life, and is 
regardless of “ popularity,” he is just guilty of the unpar« 
donable sin. The “ people” will forgive anything sooner 
than this ,* though there are “ folks” who fancy it as infal- 
lible a sign of an aristocrat not to chew tobacco. But, un- 
less I return to Joshua, the reader will complain that I cause 
him to stand still. 

“ No, no,” continued Mr. Brigham ; “ anything but an 
aristocrat for me. I hate the very name of the sarpents, 
and wish there warn’t one in the land. To-morrow we are 
to have a great anti-rent lecturer out ” 

“ A vhat ?” 

“A lecturer; one that lectur’s, you understand, on anti- 
rentism, temperance, aristocracy, government, or any other 
grievance that may happen to be uppermost. Have you 
no lecturers in Jarmany?” 

“Ja, Ja; dere ist lecturers in das universities — blenty 
of dem.” 

“ Well, we have ’em universal and partic’lar, as we hap- 
pen to want ’em. To-morrow we’re to have one, they tell 
me, the smartest man that has appeared in the cause. He 
goes it strong, and the Injins mean to back him up, with all 
sorts of shrieks and whoopin’s. Your hurdy-gurdy, there, 
makes no sort of music to what our tribe can make when 
we fairly open our throats.” 

“ Veil, dis ist queer! I vast told dat der Americans vast 
all philosophers, und dat all dey didt vast didt in a t’ought- 
ful and sober manner; und now you dells me dey screams 
deir arguments like Injins !” 


196 


T HE REDSKINS. 


“ That we do 1 I wish you ’d been here in the hard-cider 
and log-cabin times, and you ’d a seen reason and philoso. 
phy, as you call it! I was a whig that summer, though I 
went democrat last season. There ’s about five hundred on . 
us in this county that make the most of things, I can tell 
voLi. What’s the use of a vote, if a body gets nothin’ bv 
It? But to-morrow you ’ll see the business done up, ana 
matters detarmined for this part of the world, in fine style. 
We know what we’re about, and we mean to carry things 
through quite to the eend.” 

“ Und vhat do you means to do?” 

“ Well, seein’ that you 'seem to be of the right sort, and 
be so likely to put on the Injin shirt. I’ll tell you all about 
it. We mean to get good and old farms at favourable rates. 
That’s what we mean to do. The people’s up and in ’ar- 
nest, and what the people want they’ll have! This time 
they want farms, and farms they must have. What’s the 
use of havin’ a government of the people, if the people ’s 
obliged to want farms? We’ve begun ag’in’ the Renssa- 
laers, and the durables, and the quarter-sales, and the chick- 
ens ; but we don’t, by no manner of means, think of eending 
there. What should we get by that? A man wants to get 
sulhin’ when he puts his foot into a matter of this natur’. 
We know who’s our fri’nds and who’s our inimies! Could 
we have some men I could name for governors, all would j 
go clear enough the first winter. We would tax the land- i 
lords out, and law ’em about in one way and another, so as I 
to make ’em right down glad to sell the last rod of their | 
lands, and that cheap, too !” 

“ Und who might own dese farms, all oop und down der 
coontry, dat I sees?” 

“ As the law now stands, Littlepage owns ’em ; but if we 
alter the law enough, he wun’t. If we can only work the 
Legislature up to the stickin’ p’int, we shall get all we want. 
Would you believe it, the man wun’t sell a single farm, they | 
say ; but wishes to keep every one on ’em for" himself! Is ! 
that to be borne in a free country? They’d hardly stand | 
that in Jarmany, I ’m thinkin’. A man that is such an aris- 
tocrat as to refuse to sell anything, I despise.” 

“ Veil, dey stand to der laws in Charmany, und broperty 


THE REDSKINS. 197 

IS respected in most coontries. You vouldn’t do away wid 
der rights of broperty, if you mights, I hopes ?” 

“ Not I. If a man owns a watch, or a horse, or a cow, 
I ’m for having the law such that a poor man can keep ’em, 
even ag’in execution. We ’re getting the laws pretty straight 
on them p’ints, in old York, I can tell you ,* a poor man, let 
him be ever so much in debt, can hold on to a mighty smart lot 
of things, now-a-days, and laugh at the law right in its face 1 
I ’ve known chaps that owed as much as ^200, hold on to 
as good as S300 ; though most of their debts was for the 
very things they held on to !” 

What a picture is this, yet is it not true? A state of so- 
ciety in which a man can contract a debt for a cow, or his 
household goods, and laugh at his creditor when he seeks 
his pay, on the one hand ; and on the other, legislators and 
executives lending themselves to the chicanery of another 
set, that are striving to deprive a particular class of its rights 
of property, directly in the face of written contracts ! This 
is straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel, with a 
vengeance; and all for votes ! Does any one really expect 
a community can long exist, favoured by a wise and justice- 
dispensing Providence, in which such things are coolly at- 
tempted — ay, and coolly done? It is time that the Ameri- 
can began to see things as they are, and not as they are 
said to be, in the speeches of governors, fourth of July ora- 
tions, and electioneering addresses. I write warmly, I know, 
but I feel warmly ; and I write like a man who sees that a 
most flagitious attempt to rob him is tampered with by some 
in power, instead of being met, as the boasted morals and 
intelligence of the country would require, by the stern op- 
position of all in authority. Curses — deep, deep curses — 
ere long, will fall on all who shrink from their duty in such 
a crisis. Even the very men who succeed, if succeed they 
should, will, in the end, curse the instruments of their own 
success.* 

* That Mr. Hugh Litllepage does not feel or express himself too 
strongly on the state of things that has now existed among us for long, 
long years, the following case, but one that illustrates the melancholy 
truth among many, will show. At a time when the tenants of an ex- 
tensive landlord, to whom tens of thousands were owing for rent, were 
openly resisting the law, and defeating every attempt to distrain, though 

17* 


THE REDSKINS. 


198 

A first-rate lecturer on feudal tenors,” (Joshua was not 
in the least particular in his language, but, in the substance, 
he knew what he was talking about as well as some who 
are in high places,) “ chickens and days’ works. We ex- 
pect a great deal from this man, who is paid well for 
coming.” 

“ Und who might bay him ? — der State ? 

“No — we haven’t got to that yet; though some think 
the State wdll have to do it, in the long run. At present the 
tenants are taxed so much on the dollar, accordin’ to rent, 
or so much an acre, and that Way the needful money is 
raised. But one of our lecturers told us, a time back, that • 
it was money put out at use, and every man ought to keep 
an account of what he give, for the time was not far off 
W'hen he would get it back, with double interest. ‘ It is paid 
now for a reform,’ he said, ‘ and when the reform is ob- 
tained, no doubt the State w^ould feel itself so much indebted 
to us all, that it would tax the late landlords until we got 
all our money back again, and more too.” 

“ Dat vould pe a bretty speculation ; ja, dat might be 
most bootiful !” 

“ Why, yes ; it wouldn’t be a bad operation, living on 
the inimy, as a body might say. But you’ll not catch our 
folks livin’ on themselves, I can tell you. That they might 
do without societies. No, we ’ve an object ; and when folks 
has an object, they commonly look sharp a’ter it. We don’t 
let on all we want and mean openly : and you ’ll find folks 
among us that ’ll deny stoutly that anti-renters has anything 
to do with the Tnjin system ; but folks an’t obliged to believe 
the moon is all cheese, unless they’ve a mind to. Some 
among us maintain that no man ought to hold more than a 
thousand acres of land, while others think natur’ has laid 
down the law on that p’int, and that a man shouldn’t hold 
more than he has need on.” 

two ordinary companies of even armed constables would have put them 
down, the sheriff entered the house of that very landlord, and levied on 
his furniture for debt. Had that gentleman, on the just and pervading 
principle that he owed no allegiance to an authority that did not pro- 
tect him, resisted the sheriff’s officer, Ae would have gone to the State’s 
prison ; and there he might have staid until his last hour of service 
was expended. — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 199 \ 

“ Und vich side dost you favour? — vich of dese obinions | 
might not be yours ?” j 

“ I ’m not partic’lar, so I get a good farm. I should like j 

one with comfortable buildin’s on ’t, and one that hasn’t been | 

worked to death. For them two principles I think I ’d stand f 
out ; but, whether there be four hundred acres, or four hun- ^ 
dred and fifty, or even five hundred^ I ’m no way onaccom- j 
adatin’. I expect there ’ll be trouble in the eend, when w^e j 

come to the division, but I ’m not the man to make it. I \ 

s’pose I shall get my turn at the town offices, and other | 
chances, and, givin’ me my rights in them, I ’ll take up with \ 
almost any farm young Littlepage has, though I should ra- 1 
ther have one in the main valley here, than one more out j 
of the way ; still, I don’t set myself down as at all par- j 
tic’lar.” I 

“ Und vhat do you expect to bay Mr, Littlepage for der | 
farm, ast you might choose?” i 

“ That depends on sarcumstances. The Injins mainly | 
expect to come in cheap. Some folks think it ’s best to pay | 

suthin’, as it might stand ag’in’ law better, should it come | 

to that ; while other some see no great use in paying any- | 

thing. Them that ’s willing to pay, mainly hold out for \ 
paying the principal of the first rents.” | 

“ I doesn’t oonderstandt vhat you means py der brincipal j 
of der first rents.” \ 

“ It ’s plain enough, when you get the lay on ’t. You | 
see, these lands were let pretty low, when they were first j 
taken up from the forest, in order to get folks to live here, j 
That ’s the way we ’re obliged to do in America, or people j 
won’t come. Many tenants paid no rent at all for six, eight, 
or ten years; and a’ter that, until their three lives run out, 
as it is called, they pa'id only sixpence an acre, or six dol- 
lars and a quarter on the hundred acres. That was done, 
you see, to buy men to come here at all ; and you can see 
by the price that was paid, how hard a time they must have 
had on ’t. Now, some of our folks hold that the whull time 
ought to be counted — that which ^vas rent free, and that 
which was not — in a way that I ’ll explain to you ; for I ’d 
have you to know I haven’t entered into this business with* 
out looking to the right and the wrong on ’t.” 



200 


THE REDSKINS 


“ Exblain, exblain ; I might hear you exblain, and you 
most exblain.” 

“Why, you’re in a hurry, friend Griezenbach, or what- 
ever your name be. But I ’ll explain, if you wish it. S’ pose, 
now, a lease run thirty years — ten on nothin’, and twenty 
on sixpences. Well, a hundred sixpences make fifty shil- 
lings, and twenty times fifty make a thousand, as all the 
rent paid in thirty years. If you divide a thousand by thirty, 
it leaves thirty-three shillings and a fraction” — Joshua cal- 
culated like an American of his class, accurately and with 
rapidity — “ for the average rent of the thirty years. Call- 
ing thirty-three shillings four dollars, and it’s plaguy little 
more, we have that for the interest, which, at 7 per cent., 
will make a principal of rather more than fifty dollars, 
though not as much as sixty. As sich matters ought to be 
done on liberal principles, they say that Littlepage ought to 
take fifty dollars, and give a deed for the hundred acres.” 

“ Und vhat might be der rent of a hoondred acres now 1 — 
he might get more dan sixpence to-day ?” 

“That he does. Most all of the farms are running out 
on second, and some on third leases. Four shillings an 
acre is about the average of the rents, accordin’ to circum- 
stances.” 

“ Den you dinks der landtlort ought to accept one year’s 
rent for der farms ?” 

“I don’t look on it in that light. He ought to take fifty 
dollars for a hundred acres. You forget the tenants have 
paid for their farms, over and over again, in rent. They 
feel as if they have paid enough, and that it was time to 
stop.” 

Extraordinary as this reasoning may seem in most men’s • 
minds, I have since found it is a very favourite sentiment 
among anti-renters. “ Are we to go on, and pay rent for 
ever?” they ask, with logical and virtudus indignation ! 

“ Und vhat may be der aferage value of a hoondred acre 
farm, in dis part of de coontry?” I inquired. 

“ From two thousand five hundred to three thousand dol- 
lars. It would be more, but tenants won’t put good build- 
ings on farms, you know, seein’ that they don’t own them. 

I heard one of our leaders lamentin’ that he didn’t foresee 


THE REDSKINS. 


201 

what times was cornin’ to, when he repaired his old house, 
or he would have built a new one. But a man can’t fore- 
tell everything. I dare say many has the same feelin’s, 
now.” 

“ Den you dinks Herr Littlebage ought to accept $50 for 
vhat is worth $2500 ? Das seem ferry little.” 

“ You forget the back rent that has been paid, and the 
work the tenant has done. What would the farm be good 
for without the work that has been done on it?” 

“ Ja, ja — I oonderstandst ; und vhat vould der work be 
goot for vidout der landt on vhich it vast done?” 

This was rather an incautious question to put to a man 
as distrustful and rogueish as Joshua Brigham. The fellow 
cast a lowering and distrustful look at me ; but ere there was 
time to answer. Miller, of whom he stood in healthful awe, 
called him away to look after the cows. 

Here, then, I had enjoyed an opportunity of hearing the 
opinions of one of my own hirelings on the interesting sub- 
ject of my right to my own estate. I have since ascertained 
that, while these sentiments are sedulously kept out of view 
in the proceedings of the government, which deals with the 
whole matter as if the tenants were nothing but martyrs to 
hard bargains, and the landlords their task-masters, of 
greater or less lenity, they are extensively circulated in the 
“ infected districts,” and are held to be very sound doctrines 
by a large number of the “bone and sinew of the land.” 
Of course the reasoning is varied a little, to suit circum- 
stances, and to make it meet the facts. But of this school 
is a great deal, and a very great deal, of the reasoning that 
circulates on the leased property ; and, from what I have 
seen and heard already, I make no. doubt that there are 
quasi legislators among us who, instead of holding the 
manly and only safe doctrine which ought to be held on 
such a subject, and saying that these deluded men should be 
taught better, are ready to cite the very fact that such no- 
tions do exist as a reason for the necessity of making con- 
cessions, in order to keep the peace at the cheapest rate. 
That profound principle of legislation, which concedes the 
right in order to maintain quiet, is admirably adapted to 
forming sinners ; and, if carried out in favour of all who 


THE REDSKINS 


202 

I may happen to covet their neighbour’s goods, would, in a 
j short time, render this community the very paradise of 
I knaves. 

As for Josliua Brigham, I saw no more of him that night ; 
for he quitted the farm on leave, just as it got to be dark. 
Where lie went I do not know ; but the errand on which 
he left us could no longer be a secret to me. As the family 
retired early, and we ourselves were a good deal fatigued, 
everybody was in bed by nine o’clock, and, judging from 
myself, soon asleep. Previously to saying “ good night,” 
however. Miller told us of the meeting of the next day, and 
of his intention to attend it. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


« He knows the game ; how true he keeps the wind ! ’ . 

“ Silence.” 

King Henry VI. 

After an early breakfast, next morning, the signs of 
preparation for a start became very apparent in the family. 
Not only Miller, but his wife and daughter, intended to go 
down to “ Little Neest,”*as the hamlet was almost invariably 
called in that fragment of the universe, in contradistinction 
to the “ Neest” proper. I found afterwards that this very cir- 
cumstance was cited against me in the controversy, it beincr 
thought Use majeste for a private residence to monopolize 
the major of the proposition, while a hamlet had to put up 
with the minor ; the latter, moreover, including two taverns, 
which are exclusively the property of the public, there being 
exclusiveness with the public as well as with aristocrats — 
more especially in all things that pertain to power or profit. 
As to fne two last, even Joshua Brigham was much more of 
an aristocrat than I was myself. It must be admitted that 
the Americans are a humane population, for they are the 


r 


THE REDSKINS. 


203 


I 


I 

j 


1 

I 


only people who deem that bankruptcy gives a claim to 
public favour.* 

As respects the two “ Nests,” had not so much more se- 
rious matter been in agitation, the precedence of the names 
might actually have been taken up as a question of moment, j 
I have heard of a lawsuit in France, touching a name that 
has been illustrious in that country for a period so long as 
to extend beyond the reach of man — as, indeed, was appa- 
rent by the matter in controversy — and which name has 
obtained for itself a high place in the annals of even our 
own republic. I allude to the House of Grasse, which was | 
seated, prior to the revolution, and may be still, at a place j 
called Grasse, in the southern part of the kingdom, the town j 

being almost as famous for the manufacture of pleasant I 

things as the family for its exploits in arms. About a cen- j 
tury since, the Marquis de Grasse is said to have had a j 
proces with his neighbours of the place, to establish the fact | 
whether the family gave its name to the town, or the town ; 

gave its name to the family. The Marquis prevailed in the | 

struggle, but greatly impaired his fortune in achieving that 
new victory. As my house, or its predecessor, was cer- 
tainly erected and named while the site of Little Nest was 
still in the virgin forest, one would think its claims to the 
priority of possession beyond dispute ; but such might not 
prove to be the case on a trial. There are two histories*' 
among us, as relates to both public and private things ; the 
one being as nearly true as is usual, while the other is in- 
variably the fruits of the human imagination. Everything 
depending so much on majorities, that soon gets to be the 
most authentic tradition which has the most believers ; for, 
under the system of numbers, little regard is paid to supe- 
rior advantages, knowledge, or investigation, alb depending 
on 3 as against 2, which makes 1 majority. I find a great 
deal of this spurious history is getting to be mixed up with 
the anti-rent controversy, facts coming out daily that long 
have Iain dormant in the graves of the past. These facts 
affect the whole structure of the historical picture of the 

* Absurd as this may seem, it is nevertheless true, and for a reason 
that is creditable, rather than the reverse — a wish to help along the 
unfortunate. It is a great mistake, however, as a rule, to admit of any 
pther motive for selecting for public trusts, than qualification. — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 


‘204 

State and colony, leaving touches of black where the pencil i 
had originally put in white, and placing the high lights 
where the shadows have before always been understood to | 
be. In a word, men are telling the stories as best agrees ! 
with their present views, and not at all as they agree with 
fact. 

It was the intention of Tom Miller to give my uncle Ro 
and me a dearborn to ourselves, while he drove his wife, 
Kitty and a ^elp, as far as the “ Little Neest,” in a two- 
horse vehicle that was better adapted to such a freight. 
Thus disposed of, then, we all left the place in company, 
just as the clock in the farm>house entry struck nine. I 
drove our horse myself; and mine he was, in fact, every 
hoof, vehicle and farming utensil on the Nest farm, being 
as much my property, under the old laws, as the hat on 
my head. It is true, the Millers had now been fifty years 
or more, nay, nearly sixty, in possession, and by the neio 
mode of construction it is possible some may fancy that we 
had paid them wages so long for working the land, and for 
using the cattle and utensils, that the title, in a moral sense, 
had passed out of me, in order to pass into Tom Miller. If 
use begets a right, why not to a wagon and horse, as well 
as to a farm. 

As we left the place I gazed wistfully towards the Nest 
House, in the hope of seeing the form of some one that I 
loved, at a window, on the lawn, or in the piazza. Not a 
soul appeared, however, and we trotted down the road a 
short distance in the rear of the other wagon, conversing 
on such things as came uppermost in our minds. The dis- 
tance we had to go was about four miles, and the hour 
named for the commencement of the lecture, which was to 
be the great affair of the day, had been named at -eleven. 
This caused us to be in no hurry, and I rather preferred to 
coincide with the animal I drove, and move very slowly, 
than hurry on, and arrive an hour or two sooner than was 
required. In consequence of this feeling on our part. Miller 
and his family were soon out of sight, it being their wish to 
obtain as much of the marvels of the day as was possible. 

The road, of course, was perfectly well known to my 
uncle and myself; but, had it not been, there was no dan- 
ger of missing our way, as we had only to follow the gene- 


THE REDSKINS. 


205 

ral direction of the broad valley through which it ran. 
Then Miller had considerately told us that we must pass 
two churches, or a church and a “ meetin’-’us’,” the spires 
ot both of which were visible most of the way, answering 
for beacons. Referring to this term of “ meeting-house,” 
does it not furnish conclusive evidence, of itself, of the in- 
consistent folly of that wisest of all earthly beings, man 1 
It was adopted in contradistinction from, and in direct op- 
position to, the supposed idolatrous association connected 
with the use of the word “ church,” at a time when certain 
sects w'ould feel offended at hearing their places of worship 
thus styled ; whereas, at the present day, those very secta* 
rians are a little disposed to resent this exclusive appropria- 
tion of the proscribed word by the sects who have always 
adhered to it as offensively presuming, and, in a slight de- 
gree, “ arisdogradic 1” I am a little afraid that your out- 
and-outers in politics, religion, love of liberty, and other hu- 
man excellences, are somewhat apt to make these circuits 
in their eccentric orbits, and to come out somewhere quite 
near the places from which they started. 

The road between the Nest House and Little Nest, the 
liamlet, is rural, and quite as agreeable as is usually found 
in a part of the country that is wuthout water-views or moun- 
tain scenery. Our New York landscapes are rarely, nay, 
never grand, as compared with the noble views one finds in 
Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the finer parts of Europe; 
but we have a vast many that want nothing but a finish to 
their artificial accessories to render them singularly agree- 
able. Such is the case with the principal vale of Ravens- 
nest, which, at the very moment we were driving through 
it, struck my uncle and myself as presenting a picture of 
rural abundance, mingled with rural comfort, that one sel- 
dom sees in the old world, where the absence of enclosures, 
and the concentration of the dwellings in villages, leave the 
fields naked and with a desolate appearance, in spite of their 
high tillage and crops. 

“ This is an estate worth contending for, now,” said my 
uncle, as we trotted slowly on, “ although it has not hitherto 
been very productive to its owner. The first half century 
of an American property of this sort rarely brings much to 
its proprietor beyond trouble and vexation.” 

VoL. I.— 18 


206 


THE REDSKINS. 


1 


“ And after that time the tenant is to have it, pretty much 
at his own price, as a reward for his own labour !” 

“ What evidences are to be found, wherever the eye rests 
of the selfishness of man, and his unfitness to be left to the 
unlimited control of his own affairs ! In England they are 
quarrelling with the landlords, who do compose a real aris- 
tocracy, and make the laws, about the manner in which 
they protect themselves and the products of their estates ; 
while here the true owner of the soil is struggling against the 
power of numbers, with the people, who are the only aris- 
tocrats we possess, in order to maintain his right of pro- 
perty in the simplest and most naked form ! A common 
vice is at the bottom of both wrongs, and that is the vice of 
selfishness.” 

“ But how are abuses like those of which we complain 
here — abuses of the most formidable character of any that 
can exist, since the oppressors are so many, and so totally 
irresponsible by their numbers — to be avoided, if you give 
the people the right of self-government ?” 

“ God help the nation where self-government, in its lite- 
ral sense, exists, Hugh ! The term is conventional, and, 
properly viewed, means a government in which the source 
of authority is the body of the nation, and does not come 
from any other sovereign. When a people that has been 
properly educated by experience calmly selects its agents, 
and coolly sets to work to adopt a set of principles to form 
its fundamental law or constitution, the machine is on the 
right track, and will work w'ell enough so long as it is kept 
there; but this running off, and altering the fundamental 
principles every time a political faction has need of recruits, 
is introducing tyranny in its worst form — a tyranny that 
is just as dangerous to real liberty as hypocrisy is to re- 
ligion !” 

We were now approaching St. Andrew’s church and the 
rectory, with its glebe, the latter lying contiguous to the 
church-yard, or, as it is an Americanism to say, the “ grave- 
yard.” There had been an evident improvement around 
the rectory since I had last seen it. Shrubbery had been 
planted, care was taken of the fences, the garden was neatly 
and well worked, the fields looked srnooth, and everything 
denoted that it was “ new lords and new laws.” The last 


THE REDSKINS. 


20 ? 

incumbent had been a whining, complaining, narrow-minded, 
selfish and lazy priest, the least estimable of all human cha- 
racters, short ol' the commission of the actual and higher 
crimes ; but his successor had the reputation of being a de- 
vout and real Christian — one who took delight in the duties 
of his holy office, and who served God because he loved 
him. I am fully aware how laborious is the life of a coun- 
try priest, and how contracted and mean is the pittance he 
in common receives, and how much more he merits than ho 
gets, if his reward were to be graduated by things here. But 
this picture, like every other, has its different sides, and oc- • 
casionally men do certainly enter the church from motives 
as little as possible connected with those that ought to influ- 
ence them. 

“There is. the wagon of Mr. Warren, at his door,” ob- 
served my uncle, as we passed the rectory. “ Can it be 
that he intends visiting the village also, on an occasion like 
this?” 

“ Nothing more probable, sir, if the character Patt has 
given of him be true,” I answered. “ She tells me he has 
been active in endeavouring to put down the covetous spirit 
that is getting uppermost in the town, and has even preached 
boldly, though generally, against the principles involved in 
the question. The other man^ they say, goes for popularity, 
and preaches and prays with the anti-renters.” 

No more was said, but on we went, soon entering a large 
bit of wood, a part of the virgin forest. This wood, exceed- 
ing a thousand acres in extent, stretched down from the 
hills along some broken and otherwise little valuable land, 
and had been reserved from the axe to meet the wants of 
some future day. It was mine, therefore, in the fullest sense 
of the word; and, singular as it may seem, one of the 
grounds of accusation brought against me and my predeces- 
sors was that we had declined leasing it ! Thus, on the 
one hand, we were abused for having leased our land, and, 
on the other, for not having leased it. The fact is, we, in 
common with other extensive landlords, are expected to use 
our property as much as possible for the particular benefit 
of other people, while those other people are expected to use 
their property as much as possible for their own particular 
benefit. 


THE R E DSKINS. 


208 

There was near a mile of forest to pass before we came 
out again in the open country, at about a mile and a half’s 
distance from the hamlet. On our left this little forest did 
not extend more than a hundred rods, terminating at the 
edge-of the rivulet — or creek, as the stream is erroneously 
calletl, and for no visible reason but the fact that it was only 
a hundred feet wide — which swept close under the broken 
ground mentioned at this point. On our right, however, the 
forest stretched away for more than a mile, until, indeed, it 
became lost and confounded with other portions of wood that 
had been reserved for the farms on which they grew. As , 
is very usual in America, in cases where roads pass through 
a forest, a second growth had shot up on each side of this 
highway, wnlch was fringed for the whole distance with 
large bushes of pine, hemlock, chestnut and maple. In some 
places these bushes almost touched the track, while in others 
a large space was given. We were winding our way through 
this wood, and had nearly reached its centre, at a point 
where no house was visible — and no house, indeed, stood 
within half a mile of us — with the view in front and in 
rear limited to some six or eight rods in each direction by 
the young trees, when our ears were startled by a low, 
shrill, banditti-like whistle. I must confess that my feelings 
were anything but comfortable at that interruption, for I re- 
membered the conversation of the previous night. I thought 
by the sudden jump of my uncle, and the manner he in- 
stinctively felt where he ought to have had a pistol, to meet 
such a crisis, that he believed himself already in the hands 
of the Philistines. 

A half minute sufRced to tell us the truth. I had hardly 
stopped the horse, in order to look around me, when a line 
of men, all armed and disguised, issued in single file from 
the bushes, and drew up in the road, at right angles to its 
course. There were six of these “ Injiris,” as they are 
called, and, indeed, call themselves, each carrying a rifle, 
horn and pouch, and otherwise equipped for the field. The 
disguises were very simple, consisting of a sort of loose 
calico hunting-shirt and trowsers that completely concealed 
the person. The head was covered by a species of hood, 
or mask, equally of calico, that was fitted with holes for the | 
eyes, nose and mouth, and which completed the disguise. 


THE REDSKIXS. 


209 

* 

There were no means of recognizing a man thus equipped, 
unless it might be by tiie stature, in cases in which the 
party was either unusually tall or unusually short. A mid- 
dle-sized man. was perfectly safe from recognition, so long 
as he did not speak and could keep his equipments. Those 
who did speak altered their voices, as we soon found, using 
a jargon that was intended to imitate the imperfect English 
of the native owners of the soil. Although neither of us 
had ever seen one of the gang before, we knew these dis- 
turbers of the public peace to be what in truth they were, 
the instant our eyes fell on them. One could not well be 
mistaken, indeed, under the circumstances in which we 
were placed ; but the tomahawks that one or two carried, 
the manner of their march, and other pieces of mummery 
that they exhibited, would have told us the fact, had we met 
them even in another place. 

My first impulse was to turn the wagon, and to endea- 
vour to lash the lazy beast I drove into a run. Fortunately, 
before the attempt was made, I turned my head to^ see if 
there was room for such an exploit, and saw six others of 
these “ Injins” drawn across the road behind us. It was 
now so obviously the wisest 'course to put the best face on 
the matter, that w-e walked the horse boldly up to the party 
in front, until he was stopped by one of the gang taking 
him by the bridle. 

“ Sago, sago,” cr^ed one who seemed to act as a chief, 
and whom:I shall thus designate, speaking in his natural 
voice, though affecting an Indian pronunciation. “ How 
do, how do? — where come from, eh? — where go, eh? — 
What you say, too — up rent or down rent, eh?” 

“Ve ist two Charmans,” returned uncle Ro, in his most 
desperate dialect, the absurdity of men who spoke the same 
language resorting to such similar means of deception tempt- 
ing me sorely to laugh in the fellows’ faces; “ Ve ist two 
Charmans dat ist goin’ to hear a man’s sbeak about bayin’ 
rent, und to sell vatches. Might you buy a vatch, goot 
shentlemans.” 

Although the fellows doubtless knew who we were, so far 
as our assumed characters went, and had probably been 
advised of our approach, this bait took, and there was a 
general jumping up and down, and a common pow-wowing 
18 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


i 210 

j among them, indicative of the pleasure such a proposal gave. 
I In a minute the whole party we^ around us, with some 

I eight or ten more who appeared from the nearest bushes, 

i We were helped out of the wagon with a gentle violence 
that denoted their impatience. As a matter of course, I ex- 
pected that all the trinkets and watches, which were of little 
value, fortunately, would immediately disappear; for who 
could doubt that men engaged in attempting to rob on so 
large a scale as these fellows were engaged in, would hesi- 
tate about doing a job on one a little more diminutive. I 
was mistaken, however ; some sort of imperceptible disci- 
pline keeping those who were thus disposed, of whom there 
must have been some in such a party, in temporary order. 
The horse was left standing in the middle of the highway, 
right glad to take his rest, while we were shown the trunk 
of a fallen tree, near by, on which to place our box of 
wares. A dozen watches were presently in the hands of 
as many of these seeming savages, who manifested a good 
deal of admiration at their shining appearance. While this 
scene, which was half mummery and half nature, was in 
the course of enactment, the chief beckoned me to a seat on 
the further end of the tree, and, attended by one or two of 
his companions, he began to question me as follows : 

“ Mind tell truth,’' he said, making no very expert actor 
in the way of imitation. “ Dis ‘ Streak o’ Lightning,’ ” lay- 
ing his hand on his own breast, that I might not misconceive 
the person of the warrior who bore so eminent a title ; “ no 
good lie to him — know ebbery t’ing afore he ask, only ask 
for fun — what do here, eh?” 

“ Ve coomes to see der Injins und der beoples at der vil- 
lage, dat ve might sell our vatches.” 

“ Dat all ; sartain ? — can call ‘ down rent,’ eh ?” 

“ Dat ist ferry easy ; ‘ down -rent, eh V ” 

“ Sartain Jarman, eh ? — you no spy ? — you no sent here 
by gubbernor, eh ? — landlord no pay you, eh?” 

“ Vhat might I spy ? Dere ist nothin’ do spy, but mans 
vid calico faces. Vhy been you afraid of der governor? — 
i dinks der governors be ferry goot frients of der anti- 
rents.” , 

“ Not when we act this way. Send horse, send foot a’ter 
us, den. T’ink good friend, too, when he dare ” 


THE REDSKINS. 


211 

“ He be d d !” bawled out one of the tribe, in as good 

homely, rustic English as ever came out of the mouth of a 
clown. “ If he’s our friend, why did he send the artillery 
and horse down to Hudson? — and why has he had Big 
Thunder up afore his infarnal courts? He be d d !” 

There was no mistaking this outpouring of the feelings ; 
and so “ Streak o’ Lightning” seemed to think too, for he 
whispered one of the tribe, who took the plain-speaking Injin 
by the arm and led him away, grumbling and growling, as 
the thunder mutters in the horizon after the storm has 
passed on. For myself, I made several profitable reflec- 
tions concerning the inevitable fate of those who attempt 
to “ serve God and Mammon.” This anti-rentism is a ques- 
tion in which, so far as a governor is concerned, there is 
but one course to pursue, and that is to enforce the laws by 
suppressing violence, and leaving the parties to the cove- 
nants of leases to settle their differences in the courts, like 
the parties to any other contracts. It is a poor rule that 
will not work both ways. Many a landlord has made a 
hard bargain for himself; and I happen to know of one 
case in particular, in which a family has long been, and is 
still, kept out of the enjoyment of a very valuable estate, as 
to any benefit of importance, purely % the circumstance 
that a weak-minded possessor of the property fancied he 
was securing souls for paradise by letting his farms on leases 
for ninety-nine years, at nominal rents, with a covenant that 
the tenant should go twice to a particular church ! Now, 
nothing is plainer than that it is a greater hardship to the citi- 
zen who is the owner of many farms so situated, than to the 
citizen who is the lessee of only one with a hard covenant ; 
and, on general principles, the landlord in question would 
be most entitled to relief, since one man who suffers a good 
deal is more an object of true commiseration than many who 
suffer each a little. What would a governor be apt to say 
if my landlord should go, with his complaints to the foot of 
the executive chair, and tell him that the very covenant 
which had led his predecessor into the mistake of thus wast- 
ing his means was openly disregarded ; that farms worth 
many thousands of dollars had now been enjoyed by the 
tenants for near a century for mere nominal rents, and that 
the owner of the land in fee had occasion for his property, 


THE REDSKINS. 


212 

&LC. &c. Would the governor recommend legislative ac- 
tion in that case? Would the length of such leases induce 
him to recommend that no lease should exceed five years in 
duration? Would the landlords who should get up a corps 
of Injins to worry their tenants into an abandonment of their 
farms be the objects of commiseration ?— and wou-'d the law 
slumber for years over their rebellions and depredations, 
until two or three murders aroused public indignation ? Let 
them answer that know. As a landlord, I should be soi»ry 
to incur the ridicule that would attend even a public com- 
plaint of the hardships of such a case. A common sneer 
would send me to the courts for my remedy, if I had one, 
and the whole difference between the “ if and ifs” of the two 
cases would be that a landlord gives but one vote, while his 
tenants may be legion.* 

“ He be d d,” muttered the plain-speaking Injin, as 

long as I could hear him. As soon as released from his 
presence. Streak of Lightning continued his examination, 
though a little vexed at the undramatical character of the 
interruption. 

“ Sartain no spy, eh? — sartain gubbernor no send him, 
eh? — sartain come to sell watch, eh?” 

“ I coomes, as I tell ye, to see if vatches might be solt, 
und not for der gobbernor ; I neffer might see der mans.” 

As all this was true, my conscience felt pretty easy on 
the score of whatever there might be equivocal about it. 

“ What folks think of Injin down below, eh ? — what folks 
say of anti-rent, eh ? — hear him talk about much ?” 

“Veil, soome does dink anti-rent ist goot, und soome 
does dink anti-rent ist bad. Dey dinks as dey wishes.” 

Here a low whistle came down the road, or rather down 
the bushes, when every Injin started up ; each man very 
fairly gave back the watch he was examining, and in less 
than half a minute we were alone on the log. This move- 
ment was so sudden that it left us in a little" doubt as to the 
proper mode of proceeding. My uncle, however, coolly set 
about replacing his treasures in their box, while I went to 

* This is no invented statement, but strictly one that is true, the 
writer having himself a small interest in a property so situated ; though 
ho has not yet bethought him of applying to the Legislature for relief; 
— Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 213 

the horse, which had shaken off his head-stall, and was qui- 
etly grazing along the road-side. A minute or two might 
have been thus occupied, when the trotting of a horse and 
the sound of wheels announced the near approach of one 
of those vehicles which have got to be almost national ; a 
dearborn, or a one-horse wagon. As it came out from be- 
hind a screen of bushes formed by a curvature in the road, 
I saw that it contained the Rev. Mr. Warren and his sweet 
daughter. 

The road being narrow, and our vehicle in its centi’e, it 
was not possible for the new-comers to p^-oceed until we got 
out of the way, and the divine pulled up as soon as he 
reached the spot where we stood. 

“ Good morning, gentlemen^''' said Mr. Warren, cordially, 
and using a word that, in his mouth, .1 felt meant all it ex- 
pressed. “ Good morning, gentlemen. Are you playing 
Handel to the wood-nymphs, or reciting eclogues?” 

“ Neider, neider, Herr Pastor ; we meet wid coostomers 
here, und dey has joost left us,” answered uncle Ro, who 
certainly enacted his part with perfect aplomb^ and the most 
admirable mimicry as to manner. “ Guten tag^ guten tag 
Might der Herr Pastor been going to der village?” 

“We are. I understand there is to be a meeting there 
of the misguided men called anti-renters, and that several 
of my parishioners are likely to be present. On such an 
occasion I conceive it to be my duty to go among my own 
particular people, and whisper a word of advice. Nothing 
can be farther from my notions of propriety than for a cler- 
gyman to be mingling and'mixing himself up with political 
concerns in general, but this is a matter that touches mo- 
rality, and the minister of God is neglectful of his duty who 
keeps aloof when a word of admonition might aid in pre- 
venting some wavering brother from the commission of a 
grievous sin. This last consideration has brought me out 
to a scene I could otherwise most heartily avoid.” 

This might be well enough,, I said to myself, but what 
has your daughter to do in such a scene? Is the mind of 
Mary Warren, then, after all, no better than vulgar mmds 
in general ? — and can she find a pleasure in the excitement 
of lectures of this cast, and in that of public meetings ? No 
Burer test can be found of cultivation, than the manner in 


214 THE REDSKINS. 

which it almost intuitively shrinks from communion unne- 
cessarily with tastes and principles below its own level ; 
yet here was the girl with whom I was already half in love — 
and that was saying as little as could be said, too — actually 
going down to the “ Little Neest” to hear an itinerant lec- 
turer on political economy utter his crudities, and to see 
and be seen ! I was grievously disappointed, and would at 
the moment have cheerfully yielded the best farm on my 
estate to have had the thing otherwise. My uncle must 
have had some similar notion, by the remark he mpde. 

“ Und doost das jung frau go to see der Injins, too ; to 
bersuade ’em dey ist fery vicked?” 

Mary’s face had been a little pale for her, I thought, as 
the wagon drew up ; but it immediately became scarlet. She 
even suffered her head to droop a little, and then I perceived 
that she cast an anxious and tender glance at her father. I 
cannot say whether this look were or were not intended for 
a silent appeal, unconsciously made ; but the father, without 
even seeing it, acted as if he fancied it might be. 

“ No, no,” he said, hurriedly ; “ this dear girl is doing 
violence to all her feelings but one, in venturing to such a 
place. Her filial piety has proved stronger than her fears 
and her tastes, and when she found that go I would, no ar- 
gument of mine could persuade her to remain at home. I 
hope she will not repent it.” 

The colour did not quit Mary’s face, but she looked grate- 
ful at finding her true motives appreciated ; and she even 
smiled, though she said nothing. My own feelings under- 
went another sudden revulsion. There was no want of 
those tastes and inclinations that can alone render a young 
woman attractive to any man of sentiment, but there was 
high moral feeling and natural affection enough to overcome 
them in a case in which she thought duty demanded the 
sacrifice ! It was very little probable that anything would 
or could occur that day to render the presence of Mary 
Warren in the least necessary pr useful ; but it was very 
pleasant to me and very lovely in her to think otherwise, 
under the strong impulses of her filial attachment. 

Another idea, however, and one far less pleasant, sug- 
gested itself to the minds of my uncle and myself, and al- 
most at the same instant ; it was this ; the conversation was 


THE REDSKINS. 


2i5 

carried on in a high key, or loud enough to be heard at 
some little distance, the horse and part of the wagon inter- 
posing between the speakers ; and there was the physical 
certainty that some of those whom we knew to be close at 
hand, in the bushes, must hear all that was said, and might 
take serious offence at it. Under this apprehension, there- 
fore, my uncle directed me to remove our own vehicle as 
fast as possible, in order that the clergyman might pass. 
Mr. Warren, however, was in no hurry to do this, for he 
was utterly ignorant of the audience he had, and entertained 
that feeling towards us that men of liberal acquirements are 
apt to feel when they see others of similar educations re- 
duced by fortune below their proper level. He was conse- 
quently desirous of manifesting his sympathy with us, and 
would not proceed, even after I had opened the way for 
him. 

“ It is a painful thing,” continued Mr. Warren, “ to find 
men mistaking their own cupidity for the workings of a 
love of liberty. To me nothing is more palpable than that 
this anti-rent movement is covetousness incited by the father 
of evil ; yet you will find men among us who fancy they 
are aiding the cause of free institutions by joining in it, 
when, in truth, they are doing all they can to bring them 
into discredit, and to insure their certain downfall, in the 
end.” 

This was sufficiently awkward ; for, by going near enough 
to give a warning in a low voice, and have that warning 
followed by a change in the discourse, we should be betray- 
ing ourselves, and might fall into serious danger. At the 
very moment the clergyman was thus speaking I saw the 
masked head of Streak o’ Lightning appearing through an 
opening in some small pines that grew a little in the rear of 
the wagon, a position that enabled him to hear every sylla- 
ble that was uttered. I was afraid to act myself, and trusted 
to the greater experience of my uncle. Whether the last 
also saw the pretended chief was more than I knew, but he 
decided to let the conversation go on, rather leaning to the 
* anti-rent side of the question, as the course that could do no 
serious evil, while it might secure our own safety. It is 
scarcely necessary to say all these considerations glanced 


THE REDSKINS. 


216 

through our minds so swiftly as to cause no very awkward 
or suspicious pause in the discourse. 

“ B’rhaps dey doesn’t like to bay rent?” put in my uncle, 
with a roughness of manner that was in accordance with 
the roughness of the sentiment. “ Beoples might radder haf 
deir landts for nuttin’, dan bay rents for dem.” 

“ In that case, then, let them go and buy lands for them- 
selves; if they do not wish to pay rent, why did they agree 
to pay rent ?” 

“ May be dey changes deir minds. Vhat is goot to-day 
doesn’t always seem goot to-morrow.” 

“ That may be true ; but we have no right to make others 
suffer for our own fickleness. I dare say, now, that it might 
be better for the whole community that so large a tract of 
land as that included in the Manor of Rensselaerwyck, for 
instance, and lying as it does in the very heart of the State, 
should be altogether in the hands of the occupants, than have 
it subject to the divided interest that actually exists ; but it 
does not follow that a change is to be made by violence, or 
by fraudulent means. In either of the latter cases the injury 
done the community would be greater than if the present 
tenures were to exist a thousand years. I dare say much 
the larger portion of those farms can be bought off at a 
moderate advance on their actual money-value ; and that is 
the way to get rid of the diffigulty ; not by bullying owners 
out of their property. If the State finds a political conside- 
ration of so much importance for getting rid of the tenures, 
let the State tax itself toido so, and make a liberal offer, in 
addition to what the tenants will offer, and h’ll answer for 
it the landlords will not stand so much in their own way as 
to decline good prices.” 

“ But, maybes dey won’t sell all der landts ; dey may 
wants to keep some of dem.” 

“ They have a right to say yes or no, while we have no 
right to juggle or legislate them out of their property. The 
Legislature of this State has quite lately been exhibiting 
one of the most pitiable sights the world has seeffin my day. 
It has been struggling for months to find a way to get round 
the positive provisions of laws and constitutions, in order to 



THE REDSKINS. 217 

; make a sacrifice of the rights of a few, to secure the votes 
of the many.” 

“Votes ist a goot ding, at election dime — haw, haw, 
haw !” exclaimed my uncle. 

i Mr. Warren looked both surprised and oflended. The 
I coarseness of manner that my uncle had assumed effected 
I its object with the Injins, but it almost destroyed the divine’s 

i previous good opinion of our characters, and quite upset his 

! notions of our refinement and principles. There was no 
j time for explanations, however; for, just as my uncle’s 
1 broad and well-acted “ haw, haw, haw” was ended, a shrill 
whistle was heard in the bushes, and some forty or fifty of 
the Injins came whooping and leaping out from their cover, 

I filling the road in all directions, immediately around the 
wagons. 

Mary Warren uttered a little scream at this startling 
scene, and I saw her arm clinging to that of her father, by 
a sort of involuntary movement, as if she would protect him 
at all hazards. Then she seemed to rally, and from that 
instant her character assumed an energy, an earnestness, 
a spirit and an intrepidity that I had least expected in one 
so mild in aspect, and so really sweet in disposition. 

All this was unnoticed by the Injins. They had their 
impulses, too, and the first thing they did was to assist Mr. 
Warren and his daughter to alight from their wagon. This 
was done, not without decorum of manner, and certainly not 
without some regard to the holy office of one of the parties, 
and to the sex of the other. Nevertheless, it was done neatly 
and expeditiously, leaving us all, Mr. Warren and Mary, 
my uncle and myself, with a cluster of some fifty Injins 
around us, standing in the centre of the highway. 


I 


I 


218 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

« No toil in despair, 

No tyrant, no slave, 

No bread-tax is there, i' 

With a maw like the grave.’^ 

All this was so suddenly done as scarce to leave us time 
to think. There was one instant, notwithstanding, while 
two Injins were assisting Mary Warren to jump from the 
wagon, when my incognito was in great danger. Perceiving 
that the young lady was treated with no particular disre- 
spect, I so far overcame the feeling as to remain quiet, 
though I silently changed my position sufficiently to get 
near her elbow, where I could and did whisper a word or 
two of encouragement. But Mary thought only of her fa- 
ther, and had no fears for herself. She saw none but him, 
trembled only for him, dreaded and hoped for him alone. 

As for Mr. Warren himself, he betrayed no discomposure. 
Had he been about to enter the desk, his manner could not 
have been more calm, tie gazed around him, to ascertain 
if it were possible to recognise any of his captors, but sud- 
denly turned his head away, as if struck with the expedi- 
ency of not learning their names, even though it had been 
possible. He might be put on the stand as a witness against 
some misguided neighbour, did he know his person. All 
this was so apparent in his benevolent countenance, that I 
think it struck some among the Injins, and still believe it 
may have had a little influence on their treatment of him. 
A pot of tar and a bag of feathers had been brought into the 
road when the gang poured out of the bushes, but whether 
this were merely accidental, or it had originally been in- 
tended to use them on Mr. Warren, I cannot say. The of- 
fensive materials soon and silently disappeared, and with 
them every sign of any intention to ofler' personal injury. 

“ What have I done that I am thus arrested in the public 
highway, by men armed and disguised, contrary to law?” 
demanded the divine, as soon as the general pause which 


THE REDSKINS. 


219 

• succeeded the first movement invited him to speak. “ This 
is a rash and illegal step, that may yet bring repentance.” 

“ No preachee now,” answered Streak o’ Lightning ; 
“ preachee for meetin’, no good for road.” 

Mr. Warren afterwards admitted to me that he was much 
relieved by this reply, the substitution of the word “ meet* 
ing” for “ cb'^’ch” giving him the grateful assurance that 
this indivioM ’ at least, was not one of his own people. 

“ Admonition and remonstrance may always be useful 
when crime is meditated. You are now committing a felony, 
for which the State’s prison is the punishment prescribed by 
the laws of the land, and the duties of my holy office direct 
me to warn you of the consequences. The earth itself is 
but one of God’s temples, and his ministers need never hesi- 
tate to proclaim his laws on any part of it.” 

It was evident that the calm severity of the divine, aided, 
no doubt, by his known character, produced an impression 
on the gang, for the two who had still hold of his arms re- 
leased them, and a little circle was now formed, in the cen- 
tre of which he stood. 

“If you will enlarge this circle, my friends,” continued 
Mr. Warren, “ and give room, I will address you here, where 
we stand, and let you know my reasons why I think your 
conduct ought to be ” 

“ No, no — no preachee here,” suddenly interrupted Streak 
o’ Lightning ; “ go to village, go to meetin’-’us’ — preachee 
there. — Two preacher, den. — Bring wagon and put him in. 
March, march ; path open.” 

. Although this was but an “ Injin” imitation of “ Indian” 
sentqntiousness, and somewhat of a caricature, everybody 
understood well enough what was meant. Mr. Warren of- 
fered no resistance, but suffered himself to be placed in Mil- 
ler’s wagon, with my uncle at his side, without opposition. 
Then it was, however, that he bethought himself of his 
daughter, though his daughter had never ceased to think of 
him. I had some little difficulty in keeping her from rush- 
ing into the crowd, and clinging to his side. Mr. Warren 
rose, and, giving her an encouraging smile, bade her be 
calm, told her he had nothing to fear, and requested that 
she would enter* his own wagon again and return home, 


THE REDSKINS. 


220 

promising to rejoin her as soon as his duties at the village • 
were discharged. 

“ Here is no one to drive the horse, my child, but our 
young German acquaintance. The distance is very short, 
and if he will thus oblige me, he can come down to the vil- 
lage with the wagon, as soon as he has seen you safe at our 
own door.” 

Mary Warren was accustomed to defer to her father’s 
opinions, and she so far submitted, now, as to permit me to 
assist her into the wagon, and to place myself at her side, 
whip in hand, proud of and pleased with the precious charge 
thus committed to my care. These arrangements made, 
the Injins commenced their march, about half of them pre- 
ceding, and the remainder following the wagon that con- 
tained their prisoner. Four, however, walked on each side 
of the vehicle, thus preventing the possibility of escape. No 
noise was made, and little was said ; the orders being given 
by signs and signals, rather than by words. 

Our wagon continued stationary until the party had got 
at least a hundred yards from us, no one giving any heed 
to our movements. I had waited thus long for the double 
purpose of noting the manner of the proceedings among the 
Injins, and to obtain room to turn at a spot in the road a 
short distance in advance of us, and which was wider than 
common. To this spot I now walked the horse, and was 
in the act of turning the animal’s head in the required di- 
rection, when I saw Mary Warren’s little gloved hand laid 
hurriedly on the reins. She endeavoured to keep the head 
of the horse in the road. 

“No, no,” said the charming girl, speaking earnestly, 
as if she would not be denied, “ we will follow my father to 
the village. I may not, must not, cannot quit him !” 

The lime and place were every way propitious, and I de- 
termined to let Mary Warren know who I was. By doing 
it I might give her confidence in me at a moment when she 
was in distress, and encourage her with the hope that I 
might also befriend her father. At any rate, I was deter- 
mined to pass for an itinerant Dutch music-grinder with her 
no longer. 

“ Miss Mary, Miss Warren,” I commenced, cautiously, 


the redskins. 


22i 

< and with quite as much hesitation and diffidence of feeling 
j as of manner, “I am not what I seem — that is, I am no 
i music-grinder.” 

The start, the look, and the alarm of my companion, 
were all eloquent and natural. Her hand was still on the 
reins, and she now drew on them so hard as actually to stop 
the horse. I thought she intended to jump out of the vehicle, 
as a place no longer fit for her. 

“ Be not alarmed. Miss Warren,” I said, eagerly, and, 1 
trust, so earnestly as to inspire a little confidence. “You 
Will not think the worse of me at finding I am your coun- 
tryman instead of a foreigner, and a gentleman instead of a 
music-grinder. I shall do all you ask, and will protect you 
with my life.” 

“ This is so extraordinary ! — so unusual ! — The whole 
country appears unsettled ! Pray, sir, if you are not the 
person whom you have represented yourself to be, who are 
you ?” 

“One who admires your filial love and courage — who 
honours you for them both. I am the brother of your friend, 
Martha — I am Hugh Littlepage !” 

The little hand now abandoned the reins, and the dear 
girl turned half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at 
me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart 
the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, 
ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily 
deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming 
as a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went my cap, there- 
fore, and off went the wig after it, leaving my own shaggy 
curls for the sole setting of my face. 

Mary made a slight exclamation as she gazed at me, and 
the deadly paleness of her countenance was succeeded by a 
slight blush. A smile, too, parted her lips, and I fancied 
she was less alarmed. 

“ Am I forgiven. Miss Warren ?” I asked ; “ and will you 
recognise me for the brother of your friend ?” 

“ Does Martha — does Mrs. Littlepage know of this?” 
the charming girl at length asked. 

“ Both ; I have had the happiness of being embraced by 
both my grandmother and my sister. You were taken out 
19 * 


222 THE REDSKINS. 

of the room, yesterday, by the first, that I might be leP 
alone with the last, for that very purpose !” 

“ I see it all, now ; yes, I thought it singular then, though 
I felt there could be no impropriety in any of Mrs. Little- 
pages’ acts. Dearest Martha ! how well she played her 
part, and how admirably she has kept your secret !” 

“ It is very necessary. You see the condition of the 
country, and will understand that it would be imprudent in 
me to appear openly, even on my own estate. I have a 
written covenant authorizing me to visit every farm near 
us, to look after my own interests ; yet, it may be ques- 
tioned if it would be safe to visit one among them all, now 
that the spirits of misrule and covetousness are up and 
doing.” 

“ Replace your disguise at once, Mr. Littlepage,” said 
Mary, eagerly ; “ do — do not delay an instant.” 

I did as desired, Mary watching the process with inte- 
rested, and, at the same time, amused eyes. I thought she 
looked as sorry as I felt myself when that lank, villanous 
wig was again performing its office. 

“ Am I as well arranged as when we first met. Miss War- 
ren ? Do I appear again the music-grinder?” 

“ I see no difference,” returned the dear girl, laughing. 
How musical and cheering to me were the sounds of her 
voice in that little burst of sweet, feminine merriment. “ In- 
deed, indeed, I do not think even Martha could know you 
now, for the person you the moment before seemed.” 

“ My disguise is, then, perfect. I was in hopes it left a 
little that my friends might recognise, while it effectually 
concealed me from my enemies.” 

“ It does — oh ! it does. Now I know who you are, I 
find no difficulty in tracing in your features the resemblance 
to your portrait in the family gallery, at the Nest. The 
eyes, too, cannot be altered without artificial brows, and 
those you have not.” 

This was consoling ; but all that time Mr. Warren and 
the party in front had been forgotten. Perhaps it was ex- 
cusable in two young persons thus situated, and who had 
now known each other a \veek, to think more of what was 
just then passing in the wagon, than to recollect the tribe 



THE REDSKINS. 


223 

that was marching down the road, and the errand they were 
on. I felt the necessity, however, of next consulting my 
companion as to our future movements. Mary heard me in 
evident anxiety, and her purpose seemed unsettled, for she 
changed colour under each new impulse of her feelings. 

“ If it were not for one thing,” she answered, after a 
thoughtful pause, “ I should insist on following my father.” 

“ And what may be the reason of this change of pur- 
pose ?” 

“ Would it be altogether safe for you, Mr. Littlepage, to 
venture again among those misguided men I” 

“ Never think of me. Miss Warren. You see I have 
been among them already undetected, and it is my intention 
to join them again, even should I first have to take you 
home. Decide for yourself.” 

“ I will, then, follow my father. My presence may be 
the means of saving him from some indignity.” 

I was rejoiced at this decision, on two accounts ; of which 
one might have been creditable enough to me, while the 
other, I am sorry to say, was rather selfish. I delighted in 
the dear girl’s devotion to her parent, and I was glad to have 
her company as long as possible that morning. Without 
entering into a very close analysis of motives, however, I 
drove down the road, keeping the horse on a very slow gait, 
being in no particular hurry to quit my present fair com- 
panion. 

Mary , and I had now a free, and, in some sense, a con- 
fidential dialogue. Her manner towards me had entirely 
changed ; for, while it maintained the modesty and retenue 
of her sex and station, it displayed much of that frankness 
which was the natural consequence of her great intimacy at 
the Nest, and, as I have since ascertained, of her own in- 
genuous nature. The circumstance, too, that she now felt 
she was with one of her own class, who had opinions, habits, 
tastes and thoughts like her own, removed a mountain of 
restraint, and made her communications natural and easy. 
I was near an hour, I do believe, in driving the two miles 
that lay between the point where the Injins had been met 
i an’d the village, and in that hour Mary Warren and I be- 
I came better acquainted than would have been the case, under 
ordinary circumstances, in a year. 


THE REDSKINS. 


224 

In the first place, I explained the reasons and manner of 
my early and unexpected return home, and the motives by 
which I had been governed in thus coming in disguise on 
my own property. Then I said a little of rny future inten- 
tions, and of my disposition to hold out to the last against 
every attempt on my rights, whether they might come frora 
the open violence and unprincipled designs of those below, 
or the equally unprincipled schemes of those above. A spu- 
rious liberty and political cant were things that I despised, ! 
as every intelligent and independent man must ; and I did | 
not intend to be persuaded I was an aristocrat, merely be- ; 
cause I had the habits of a gentleman, at the very moment 
when I had less political influence than the hired labourers 
in my own service. 

Mary Warren manifested a spirit and an intelligence that 
surprised me. She expressed her own belief that the pro- 
scribed classes of the country had only to be true to them- 
selves to be restored to their just rights, and that on the 
very principle by which they were so fast losing them. The 
j opinions she thus expressed are worthy of being recorded, 
j “Everything that is done in that way,” said this gentle, 

I but admirable creature, “has hitherto been done on a principle 
I that is quite as false and vicious as that by which they are 
I now oppressed. We have had a great deal written and said, 

I lately, about uniting people of property, but it has been so 

i evidently with an intention to make money rule, and that 
I in its most vulgar and vicious manner, that persons of right 
feelings would not unite in such an effort ; but it does seem 
to me, Mr. Littlepage, that if the gentlemen of New York I 
would form themselves into an association in defence of 
their rights, and for nothing else, and let it be known that 
they would not be robbed with impunity, they are numerous 
enough and powerful enough to put down this anti-rent pro- 
ject by the mere force of numbers. Thousands would join 
them for the sake of principles, and the country might be 
left to the enjoyment of the fruits of liberty, without getting 
any of the fruits of its cant.” ° 

This is a capital idea, and might easily be carried out. 

It requires nothing but a little self-denial, 'with the convict 
tion of the necessity of doing something, if the downward 
tendency is to be ever checked short of civil v^ar, and a 


THE REDSKINS. 225 

revolution that is to let in despotism in its more direct form ; 
despotism, in the indirect, is fast appearing among us, as 
it is. 

“ I have heard of a proposition for the Legislature to ap- 
point special commissioners, who are to settle all the difli- 
culties between the landlords and tenants,” I remarked, “ a 
scheme in the result of which some people profess to have 
a faith. I regard it as only one of the many projects that 
have been devised to evade the laws and institutions of the 
country, as they now exist.” 

Mary Warren seemed thoughtful for a moment; then her 
eye and face brightened, as if she were struck with some 
thought suddenly; after which the colour deepened on her 
cheek, and she turned to me as if half doubting, and yet 
half desirous of giving utterance to the idea that was up- 
permost. 

“ You wish to say something. Miss Warren?” 

“I dare say it will be very silly — and I hope you won’t 
think it pedantic in a girl, but really it does look so to me — 
what difference would there be between such a commission 
and the Star-Chamber judges of the Stuarts, Mr. Little- 
page'?” 

“ Not much in general principles, certainly, as both would 
be the instruments of tyrants; but a very important one in 
a great essential. The Star-Chamber courts were legal, 
whereas this commission would be flagrantly illegal ; the 
adoption of a special tribunal to effect certain purposes that 
could exist only in the very teeth of the constitution, both 
in its spirit and its letter. Yet this project comes from men 
who prate about the ‘ spirit of the institutions,’ which they 
clearly understand to be their own spirit, let that be what it 
may.” 

“ Providence, I trust, will not smile on such desperate 
efforts to do wrong !” said Mary Warren, solemnly. 

“ One hardly dare look into the inscrutable ways of a 
Power that has its motives so high beyond our reach. Pro- 
vidence permits much evil to be done, and is very apt to be, 
as Frederic of Prussia expressed it, on the side of strong 
battalions, so far as human vision can penetrate. Of one 
thing, however, I feel certain, and that is that they'who are 
now the most eager to overturn everything to effect present 


r 


226 THE REDSKINS. 

purposes, will be made to repent of it bitterly, either in theii; 
own persons, or in those of their descendants.” 

“ That is what is meant, my father says, by visiting ‘ the 
sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and 
fourth generations.’ But there is the party, with their pri- 
soners, just entering the village. Who is your companion, 
Mr. Littlepage? — One hired to act as an assistant?” 

“ It is my uncle, himself. You have often heard, I should 
think, of Mr. Roger Littlepage?” 

Mary gave a little exclamation at hearing this, and she 
almost laughed. After a short pause she blushed brightly", 
and turned to me as she said — _ 

“ And my father and I have supposed you, the one a 
pedlar, and the other a street-musician 1” 

“ But bedlars and moosic-grinders of goot etications, as 
might be panishet for deir bolitics.” 

Now, indeed, she laughed out, for the long and frank dia- 
logue we had held together made this change to broken 
English seem as if a third person had joined us. I profited 
by the occasion to exhort the dear girl to be calm, and not 
to feel any apprehension on the subject of her father. I 
pointed out how little probable it was that violence would be 
offered to a minister of the gospel, and showed her, by the 
number of persons that had collected in the village, that it 
was impossible he should not have many warm and devoted 
friends present. I also gave her permission to, nay, re- 
quested she would, tell Mr. Warren the fact of my uncle’s 
and my own presence, and the reasons of our disguises, 
trusting altogether to the very obvious interest the dear girl 
took in our safety, that she would add, of her own accord, 
the necessary warning on the subject of secresy. Just as 
this conversation ended we drove into the hamlet, and I 
helped my fair companion to alight. 

Mary Warren now hastened to seek her father, while I 
was left to take care of the horse. This I did by fastening 
him to the rails of a fence, that was lined for a long dis- 
tance by horses and wagons drawn up by the way-side. 
Surprisingly few persons in the country, at this day, are 
seen on horseback. Notwithstanding the vast difference in 
the amount of the population, ten horsemen were to be met 
with forty years ago, by all accounts, on the "highways of 


THE REDSKINS. 


U27 

I the State, for one to-day. The well-known vehicle, called 

I a dearborn, with its four light wheels and mere shell of a 

j box, is in such general use as to have superseded almost 

, every other species of conveyance. Coaches and chariots 

I are no longer met with, except in the towns ; and even the 

; coachee, the English sociable, which was once so common, ! 

has very generally given way to a sort of carriage- wagon, | 

j that seems a very general favourite. My grandmother, who | 

I did use the stately-looking and elegant chariot in town, had 

j nothing but this carriage-wagon in the country ; and I ques- 

j tion if one-half of the population of the State would know I 

j what to call the former vehicle, if they should see it. 

As a matter of course, the collection of people assembled 
at Little Nest on this occasion had been brought together in 
dearborns, of which there must have been between two and j 
three hundred lining the fences and crowding the horse- j 
sheds of the two inns. The American countryman, in the ; 
true sense of the word, is still quite rustic in many of his 
notions ; though, on the whole, less marked in this particu- 
I lar than his European counterpart. As the rule, he has 
! yet to learn that the little liberties which are tolerated in a 
; thinly-peopled district, and which are of no great moment 
! when put in practice under such circumstances, become op- 
j pressive and offensive when reverted to in places of much 
i resort. The habits of popular control, too, come to aid in ; 

making them fancy that what everybody does in their part | 

of the country can have no great harm in it. It was in j 

conformity with this tendency of the institutions, perhaps, 
that very many of the vehicles I have named were thrust 
into improper places, stopping up the footways, impeding j 

the entrances to doors, here and there letting down bars | 

without permission, and garnishing orchards and pastures j 

with one-horse wagons. Nothing was meant by all these \ 

liberties beyond a desire to dispose of the horses and vehi- j 

cles in the manner easiest to their owners. Nevertheless, 
there was some connection between the institutions and i 

I these little liberties which some statesmen might fancy ex- j 

! isted in the spirit of the former. This, however, was a j 

! capital mistake, inasmuch as the spirit of the institutions | 

I is to be found in the law’s, which prohibit and punish all j 

j sorts of trespasses, and which are enacted expressly to curb j 


THE REDSKINS. 


r 

j 228 

j the tendencies of human nature ! No, no, as my uncle Ro 
says, nothing can be less alike, sometimes, than the spirit 
of institutions and their tendencies. 

! I was surprised to find nearly as many females as men 
I had collected at the Little Nest on this occasion. As for 
I the Injins, after escorting Mr. Warren as far as the village, 

I as if signiftcantly to admonish him of their presence, they 
I had quietly released him, permitting him to go where he 
j pleased. Mary had no difficulty in finding him, and I saw 
] her at his side, apparently in conversation with Opportunity 
I and her brother, Seneca, as soon as I moved down the road, 

I after securing the horse. The Injins themselves kept a little 
j aloof, having my uncle in their very centre ; not as a pri- 
j soner, for it was clear no one suspected his character, but 
I as a pedlar. The watches were out again, and near half 
j of the whole gang seemed busy in trading, though I thought 
I that some among them were anxious and distrustful, 
j It was a singular spectacle to see men who were raising [ 
I the cry of “ aristocracy” against those who happened to be i 
I richer than themselves, while they did not possess a single j 

j privilege or power that, substantially, was not equally shared | 

I by every other man in the country, thus openly arrayed in j 

j defiance of law, and thus violently trampling the law under j 

I their feet. What made the spectacle more painful was the ! 

certainty that was obtained by their very actions on the 
I ground, that no small portion of these Injins were mere i 

boys, led on by artful and knavish men, and who consi- i 

I dered the whole thing as a joke When the laws fall so i 

i much into disrepute as to be the subjects of jokes of this 

I sort, it is time to inquire into their mode of administration, 
i Does any one believe that fifty landlords could have thus 

j flown into the face of a recent enactment, and committed 

I felony openly, and under circumstances that had rendered j 
j their intentions no secret, for a time long enough to enable i 

j the authorities to collect a force sufficient to repress them? j 

My own opinion is, that had Mr. Stephen Rensselaer, and : 

Mr. William Rensselaer, and Mr. Harry Livingston, and j 

Mr. John Hunter, and Mr. Daniel Livingston, and Mr. Hugh I 
Littlepage, and fifty more that I could name, been caught I 
armed and disguised, in order to defend the rights of pro. 
perty that are solemnly guarantied^in these institutions, of | 


TUB REDSKINS. 


229 

ivhich it would seem to be the notion of some that it is the 
j “spirit” to dispossess them, we should all of us have been 
I tiie inmates of States’ prisons, wiilioul legislators troubling 
themselves to pass laws for our liberation ! This is another 
of the extraordinary features of American aristocracy, which 
almost deprives the noble of the every-day use and benefit 
of the law. It would be worth our while to lose a moment 
in inquiring into the process by which such strange results 
are brought about, but it is fortunately rendered unneces- 
sary by the circumstance that the principle will be amply 
developed in the course of the narrative. 

A stranger could hardly have felt the real character of 
this meeting by noting the air and manner of those who had 
come to attend it. The “armed and disguised” kept them- 
selves in a body, it is true, and maintained, in a slight de- 
gree, the appearance of distinctness from “ the people,” but 
many of the latter stopped to speak to these men, and were 
apparently on good terms with them. Not a few of the 
gentler sex, even, appeared to have acquaintances in the 
gang ; and it would have struck a political philosopher from 
the other hemisphere with some surprise, to have seen the 
“ people” thus tolerating fellows who were openly trampling 
on a law that the “people” themselves had just enacted! 
A political philosopher from among ourselves, however, 
might have explained the seeming contradiction by referring 
it to the “sjfiritof the institutions.” If one were to ask 
Hugh Littlepage to solve the difficulty, he would have been 
very apt to answer that the “ people” of Ravensnest wanted 
to compel him to sell lands which he did not wish to sell, 
and tha. not a few of them were anxious to add to the com- 
pulsory bargains conditions as to price that would rob him 
I of about one-half of his estate; and that what the Albany 
philosophers called the “spirit of the institutions,” was, in 
fact, a “ spirit of the devil,” which the institutions were ex- 
pressly designed to hold in subjection 1 

There was a good deal of out-door management going on, 
as might be seen by the private discussions that were held 
between pairs, under what is called the “ hT)rse-shedding” 
process. This “ horse-shedding” process, I understand, is 
well known among us, and extends not only to politics, but 
I to the administration of justice. Your regular “ horse- 
VoL. I.— 20 


THE REDSKINS. 


I 

i 


230 

shedder’- is employed to frequent taverns where jurors stay, 
and drops hints before them touching the merits of causes 
known to be on the calendars ,* possibly contrives to get into 
a room with six or eight beds, in which there may acci- 
dentally be a juror, or even two, in a bed, when he drops 
into a natural conversation on the merits of some matter at 
issue, praises one of the parties, while he" drops dark hints 
to the prejudice of the other, and makes his own representa- 
tions of the facts in a way to scatter the seed where he is 
morally certain it will take root and grow. All this time 
, he is not conversing with a juror, not he ; he is only as- 
I suming the office of the judge by anticipation, and dissect- 
I ing evidence before it has been given, in the ear of a parti- 
cular friend. It is true there is a law against doing any- 
thing of the sort ; it is true there is law to punish the editor 
of a newspaper who shall publish anything to prejudice the 
interests of litigants ; it is true the “ horse-shedding process” 
is flagrantly wicked, and intended to destroy most of the 
benefits of the jury-system ; but, notwithstanding all this, 
the “ spirit of the institutions” carries everything before it, 
and men regard all these laws and provisions, as well as the 
eternal principles of right, precisely as if they had no exist- 
ence at all, or as if a freeman were above the law. He 
• makes the law, and why should he not break it ? Here is 
i another effect of the “ spirit of the institutions.” 

At length the bell rang, and the crowd began to move to- 
wards the ‘‘ meetin’-us.” This building was not that which 
had been originally constructed, and at the raising of which 
I have heard it said, my dear old grandmother, then a lovely 
! and spirited girl of nineteen, had been conspicuous for her 
I coolness and judgment, but a far more pretending successor. 

I The old building had been constructed on the true model of the 
highest dissenting spirit — a spirit that induced its advocates 
to quarrel with good taste as well as religious dogmas, in 
order to make the chasm as wide as possible — while in this, 
some concessions had been made to the temper of the times. 
I very well remember the old “ meetin’-us” at the “ Little 
Nest,” for it was pulled down to give place to its more pre- 
tending successor after I had attained my sixteenth year. 
A description of both may let the reader into the secret of 
our rural church architecture. 


THE REDSKINS. 231 

The “ old Neest meetin’-us,” like its successor, was of a 
hemlock frame, covered with pine clap-boards, and painted 
white. Of late years, the paint had been of a most fleeting 
quality, the oil seeming to evaporate, instead of striking in 
and setting, leaving the colouring matter in a somewhat de- 
composed condition, to rub off by friction and wash away 
in the rains. The house was a stiff, formal parallelogram, 
resembling a man with high shoulders, appearing to be 
“ stuck up.” It had two rows of formal, short and ungrace- 
ful windows, that being a point in orthodoxy at the period 
of its erection. It had a tower, uncouth, and in some re- 
spects too large and others too small, if one can reconcile 
the contradiction ; but there are anomalies of this sort in art, 
as well as in nature. On lop of this tower stood a long- 
legged belfry, which had got a very dangerous, though a 
very common, propensity in ecclesiastical matters ; in other 
words, it had begun to “ cant.” It was this diversion from 
the perpendicular which had suggested the necessity of 
erecting a new edifice, and the building in which the “ lec- 
ture” on feudal tenures and aristocracy was now to be deli- 
'Vered. 

The new meeting-house at Little Nest was a much more 
pretending edifice than its predecessor. It was also of wood, 
but a bold diverging from “first principles” had been ven- 
tured on, not only in physical, but in the moral church. 
The last was “ new-school as, indeed, was the first. 
What “ new-school” means, in a spiritual sense, I do not 
exactly know, but I suppose it to be some improvement on 
some other improvement of the more ancient and venerable 
dogmas of the sect to which it belongs. These improve- 
ments on improvements are rather common among us, and 
are favourably viewed by a great number under the name 
of progress; though he who stands at a little distance can, 
half the time, discover that the parties in progress very often 
come out at the precise spot from which they started. 

For my part, I find so much wisdom in the bible — so pro- 
found a knowledge of human nature, and of its tendencies — 
counsel so comprehensive and so safe, and this solely in re- 
ference to the things of this life, that I do not believe every- 
thing is progress in the right direction because it sets us in 
motion on paths that are not two thousand years old ! I 


THE REDSKINS. 


232 

believe that we have quite as much that ought to be kept, 
as of that which ought to be thrown away ; and while 1 
admit the vast number of abuses that have grown up in the ' 
old world, under the “ spirit of their institutions,” as our 
philosophers would say, I can see a goodly number that 
are also growing up here, certainly not under the same 
“ spirit,” unless we refer them both, as a truly wise man 
would, to our common and miserable nature. 

The main departure from first principles, in the sense of 
material things, was in the fact that the new meeting-house 
had only one row of windows, and that the windows of that 
row had the pointed arch. The time has been when this 
circumstance would have created a schism in the theo- 
logical world ; and T hope that my youth and inexperience 
will be pardoned, if I respectfully sugges-t that a pointed 
arch, or any other arch in wood^ ought to create another in 
the world of taste. 

But in we went, men, women and children ; uncle Ro, 
Mr. Warren, Mary, Seneca, Opportunity, and all, the Injins . 
excepted. For some reason connected with their policy, 
those savages remained outside, until the whole audience 
had assembled in grave silence. The orator was in, or on 
a sort of stage, which was made, under the_ new-light sys- 
tem in architecture, to supersede the old, inconvenient, and 
ugly pulpit, supported on each side by two divines, of what 
denomination I shall not take on myself to say. It will be 
sufficient if I add Mr. Warren was not one of them. He 
and Mary had ^ken their seats quite near the door, and 
under the gallery. I saw that the rector was uneasy the 
moment the lecturer and his two supporters entered the pul- 
pit, and appeared on the stage ; and at length he arose, and 
followed by Mary, he suddenly left the building. In an 
instant I was at their side, for it struck me indisposition 
was the cause of so strange a movement. Fortunately, at 
this moment, the whole audience rose in a body, and" one 
of the ministers commenced an extempore prayer. 

At that instant, the Injins had drawn themselves up 
around the building, close to its sides, and under the open 
windows, in a position that enabled them to hear all that 
passed. As I afterwards learned, this arrangement was 
made with an understanding with those within, one of the 


THE REDSKINS. 


2.33 


ntinisiers having positively refused to address the throne of 
i Grace so long as any of the tribe were present. Well has 

j it been said, that man often strains at a gnat, and .swallows 

« camel ! 


CHAPTER XV 

“I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier means to to dress the common 
iveallh, and turn it, and put a new nap upon it.” 

King Henry VI. 

As I knew Mary must have communicated to her father 
rny real name, I did not hesitate, as I ought to have done in 
my actual dress and in my assumed character, about fol- 
lowing them, in order to inquire if I could be of any ser- 
j vice. I never saw distress more strongly painted in any 
j man’s countenance than it was in that of Mr. Warren, when 
j I approached. So very obvious, indeed, was his emotion, 
I that 1 did not venture to obtrude myself on him, but followed 
j in silence ; and he and Mary slowly walked, side by side, 

I across the street to the sloop of a house, "of which all the 

usual inmates had probably gone in the other direction. 
Here, Mr. Warren took a seat, Mary still at his side, while 
I drew near, standins: before him. 

“ I thank you, Mr. Littlepage,” the divine at length said, 
with a smile so painful it was almost haggard, for, so 
Mary tells me you should be called — I thank you for this 
attention, sir — but, it will be over in another minute — I feel 
better now, and shall be able to command myself” 

No more was then said, concerning the reason of this 
distress ; but Mary has since explained to me its cause. 
When her father went into the meeting-house, he had not the 
smallest idea that arivthing like a religious service would be 
dragged into the ceremonies of such a day. The two mi- 
nisters on the stage first gave him the alarm ; when a most 
painful struggle occurred in his mind, whether or not he 
should remain, and be a partj- to the mockery of addressing 
20 * 

> 


234 THE REDSKINS. 

God in prayer, in an assembly collected to set at naught 
one of the plainest of his laws — nay, with banded felons 
drawn up around the building, as principal actors in the 
whole mummery. The alternative was for him, a minister 
of the altar, to seem to quit those who were about to join in 
prayer, and to do this moreover under circumstances which 
might appear to others as if he rejected all worship but that 
which was in accordance with his own views of right, a 
notion that would be certain to spread far and near, greatly 
to- the prejudice of his own people. But the first, as he 
viewed the matter, involved a species of blasphemy ; and 
yielding to his feelings, he took the decided step he had, in- 
tending to remain out of the building, until the more regular 
business of the day commenced. 

It is certain Mr. Warren, who acted under the best im- 
pulse of Christian feeling, a reverence for God, and a pro- 
found wish not to be a party in offending him with the 
mockery of worship under such circumstances, has lost 
much influence, and made many enemies, by the step he 
then took. The very same feeling which has raised the 
cry of aristocracy against every gentleman who dw^ells in 
sufficiently near contact with the masses to distinguish his 
habits from those around him ; which induces the eastern 
emigrant, who comes from a state of society where there 
are no landlords, to fancy those he finds here ought to be 
pulled down, because he is not a landlord himself; which 
enables the legislator to stand up in his place, and unblush- 
ingly talk about feudal usages, at the very instant he is 
demonstrating that equal rights are denied to those he would 
fain stigmatize as feudal lords, has extended to religion, and 
the church of which Mr. Warren was a minister, is very 
generally accused of being aristocratic, too ! This charge 
is brought because it has claims which other churches affect 
to renounce and reject as forming no part of the faith ; but 
the last cannot remain easy under their own decisions; 
and while they shout, and sing that they have found “ a 
church without a bishop,” they hate the church that has a 
bishop, because it has something they do not possess them- 
selves, instead of pitying its deluded members, if they be- 
lieve them wrong. This will not be admitted generally, but 
it is nevertheless true; and betrays itself in a hundred ways. 


THE REDSKINS. 


235 

It is seen in the attempt to call their own priests bishops, in 
the feeling so manifest whenever a cry can be raised against 
their existence, and in the general character of these theo- 
logical rallies, whenever they do occur. 

For one, I see a close analogy between my own church, as 
it exists in this country, and comparing it with that from which 
it sprung, and to those w^hich surround it, and the true political 
circumstances of the two hemispheres. In discarding a vast 
amount of surplusage, in reducing the orders of the ministry 
in practice, as well as in theory, to their primitive number, 
three, and in rejecting all connection with the State, the Ame- 
rican branch of the Episcopal Church has assumed the posi- 
tion it w^as desirous to fill ; restoring, as near as may be, the 
simplicity of the apostolical ages, while it does not disregard 
the precepts and practices of the apostles themselves. It 
has not set itself above antiquity and authority, but merely 
endeavoured to sustain them, without the encumbrances of 
more modern abuses. Thus, too, has it been in political 
things. No attempt has been made to create new organic 
social distinctions in this country, but solely to disencumber 
those that are inseparable from the existence of all civilized 
society, of the clumsy machinery with which the expe- 
dients of military oppressors had invested them. The real 
sages of this country, in founding its institutions, no more 
thought of getting rid of the landlords of the country, than 
the church thought of getting rid of its bishops. The first 
knew that the gradations of property were an inevitable 
incident of civilization ; that it would not be w’ise, if it were 
possible, to prevent the affluent from making large invest- 
* ments in the soil ; and that this could not be done in prac- 
tice, without leaving the relation of landlord and tenant. 
Because landlords, in other parts of the world, possessed 
privileges that were not necessary to the natural or simple 
existence of the character, was no reason for destroying 
the character itself; any more than the fact that the 
bishops of England possess an authority the apostles 
knew nothing of, rendered it proper for the American 
branch of the church to do away with an office that came 
from the apostles. But, envy and jealousy do not pause 
to reflect on such things ; it is enough for them, in the one 
case, that you and yours have estates^ and occupy social 


236 THEREDSKINS. 

positions, that I and mine do not, and cannot easily, occupy | 
and possess ; therefore I will oppose you, and join my voice 
to the cry of those who wish to get their farms for nothing; ! 
and in the other, that you have bishops when we can have 
none, without abandoning our present organization and doc- | 
trines. < I 

I dwell on these points at some little length, because the 1 
movements of Mr. Warren and myself, at that moment, had j 
a direct influence on the circumstances that will soon be j 
related. It is probable that fully one-half of those collected 
in the Little Nest meeting-house, that morning, as they stood 
up, and lent a sort of one-sided and listless attention to the ! 
prayer, were thinking of the scandalous and aristocratical ! 
conduct of Mr. Warren, in “ goin’ out o’ meetin’ just as j 
meetin’ went to prayers !” Few, indeed, were they who | 
would be likely to ascribe any charitable motive for the | 
act ; and probably not one of those present thought of the | 
true and conscientious feeling that had induced it. So the I 
world wags ! It is certain that a malignant and bitter feel- j 
ing was got up against the worthy rector on that occasion, ! 
and for that act, which has not yet abated, and which will i 
not abate in many hundreds, until the near approach of ; 
death shall lay bare to them the true character of so many j 
of their own feelings. i 

It was some minutes before Mr. Warren entirely regained I 
his composure. At length he spoke to me, in his usual be- ^ 
nevolent and mild way, saying a few words that were com- i 
plimentary, on the subject of my return, while he expressed | 
his fears that my uncle Ro and myself had been impru- | 
dent in thus placing ourselves, as it might be, in the lion’s 
jaws. 

“ You have certainly made your disguises so complete,” 
he added, smiling, ‘^as to have escaped wonderfully \yell so 
far. That you should deceive Mary and myself is no great 
matter, since neither of us ever saw you before ; but, the i 
manner in which your nearest relatives have been misled, i 
is surprising. Nevertheless, you have every inducement to ! 
be cautious, for hatred and jealousy have a penetration that 
does not belong even to love.” i 

“ We think we are safe, sir,” I answered, “ for we are i 

certainly within the statute. We are too well aware of our | 


THE REDSKINS. 237 

miserable aristocratical condition to place ourselves within 
the grasp of the law, for such are our eminent privileges as 
a landed nobility, that we are morally certain either of us 
would not only be sent to the state’s prison were he to be 
guilty of the felony those Injins are committing, and will 
commit, with perfect impunity, but that he would be kept 
there, as long as a single tear of anguish could be wrung 
from one of those who are classed with the aristocracy. De- 
mocracy alone finds any sympathy in the ordinary admi- 
nistration of American justice.” 

“ I am afraid that your irony has only too much truth in 
it. But the movement around the building would seem to 
say that the real business of the day is about to commence, 
and we had better return to the church.” 

“ Those men in disguise are watching us, in a most un- 
pleasant and alarming manner,” said Mary Warren, delight- 
ing me far more by the vigilance she thus manifested in my 
behalf, than alarming me by the fact. 

That we were watched, however, became obviously appa- 
rent, as we walked towards the building, by the actions of 
some of the Injins. They had left the side of the church 
where they had posted themselves during the prayer, and 
head was going to head, among those nearest to us ,* or, it 
would be nearer to appearances, were I to say bunch of 
calico was going to bunch of calico, for nothing in the form 
of a head was visible among them. Nothing was said to 
Mr. Warren and Mary, however, who were permitted to go 
into the meeting-house, unmolested ; but two of these dis- 
guised gentry* placed themselves before me, laying their 
rifles across my path, and completely intercepting my ad- 
vance. 

“ Who you ?” abruptly demanded one of the two ; — 
“ where go — where come from ?” 

The answer was ready, and I trust it was sufficiently 
steady. 

“ I coomes from Charmany, und I goes into der kerch, 
as dey say in mine coontry ; what might be callet meetin’- 
’us, here.” 

What might have followed, it is not easy to say, had not 
the loud, declamatory voice of the lecturer just then been 
beard, as he commenced his address. This appeared to be 


THE REDSKINS. 


238 

a signal for the tribe to make some movement, for the two 
fellows who had stopped me, walked silently away, though 
bag of calico went to bag of calico, as they trotted off toge- 
ther, seemingly communicating to each other their suspi- 
cions. I took advantage of the opening, and passed into 
the church, where I worked my way through the throng, 
and got a seat at my uncle’s side. 

I have neither time, room, nor inclination to give any-, 
thing like an analysis of the lecture. The speaker was 
fluent, inflated, and anything but logical. Not only did he 
contradict himself, but he contradicted the laws of nature. 
The intelligent reader will not require to be reminded of the 
general character of a speech that was addressed to the 
passions and interests of such an audience, rather than to 
their reason. He commented, at first, on the particular 
covenants of the leases on the old estates of the colony, 
alluding to the quarter-sales, chickens, days’ work, and du 
rable tenures, in the customary way. The reservation of 
the mines, too, was mentioned as a tyrannical covenant, 
precisely as if a landlord were obliged to convey any more 
of the rights that were vested in him, than he saw fit; or the 
tenant could justly claim more than he had hired ! This 
man treated all these branches of the subject, as if the 
tenants had acquired certain mysterious interests by time 
and occupation, overlooking the fact that the one party got 
just as good a title as the other by this process ; the lease 
being the instrument between them, that was getting to be 
venerable. If one party grew old as a tenant, so did the 
other as a landlord. I thought that this lecturer would have 
been glad to confine himself to the Manor leases, that being 
the particular branch of the subject he had been accustomed 
treat ; .but, such was not the precise nature of the job he 
employed to execute. At Ravensnest, he could 
^"ndt-'Murish the feudal grievance of the quarter-sales, the 
fat fowls,” the “ days’ works,” and the length of the 
leases. Here it was clearly his cue to say nothing of the 
three first, and to complain of the shortness of the leases, as 
mine were about to fall in, in considerable numbers. Find- 
ing it was necessary to take new ground, he determined it 
should be bold ground, and such as would give him the least 
trouble to get along with. 


THE REDSKINS. 


239 

As soon as the lecturer had got through with his general 
heads, and felt the necessity of coming down to particulars, 
he opened upon the family of Littlepage, in a very declama- 
tory way. What had they ever done for the country, he 
demanded, that they should be lords in the land 1 By some 
process known to himself, he had converted landlords into 
ords in the land, and was- now aiming to make the tenants 
occupy the latter station — nay, both stations. Of course, 
some services of a public character, of which the Little- 
pages might boast, were not touched upon at all, everything 
of that nature being compressed into what the lecturer and 
his audience deemed serving the people, by helping to indulge 
them in all their desires, however rapacious or wicked. As 
everybody who knows anything of the actual stale of 
matters among us, must be aware bow rarely the “ people” 
hear the truth, when their own power and interests are in 
question, it is not surprising that a very shallow roasoner 
was enabled to draw wool over the eyes of the audience of 
Ravensnest on that particular subject. 

But my interest was most awakened when this man came 
to speak of myself. It is not often that a man enjoys the 
same opportunity as that I then possessed to hear his own 
character delineated, and his most private motives analyzed. 
In the first place, the audience were told that this “ young 
Hugh Littlepage had never done anything for the land that 
he proudly, and like a great European noble, he calls his 
‘ estate.’ Most of you, fellow-citizens, can show your hard 
hands, and recall the burning suns under which you have 
• opened the swarth, through those then lovely meadows 
yonder, as yovr titles to these farms. But, Hugh Littlepage 
never did a day’s work in his life” — ten minutes before he 
had been complaining of the “ days’ work” in the Mano^ 
leases as indignities that a freeman ought not to submit 
“no, fellow-citizens, he never had that honour, and- n^rer 
will have it, until by a just division of his property, or \<fet , 
he now calls his property, you reduce him to the necessity 
of labouring to raise the crops he wants to consume.” 

“ Where is this Hugh Littlepage at this very moment ? 
In Paris, squandering your hard earnings in riotous living, 
according to the best standards of aristocracy. He lives in 
the midst of abundance, dresses richly and fares richly, 


THE REDSKINS. 


240 

while you and yours are eating the sweat of your brows. 
He is no man for a pewter spoon and two-pronged fork ! 
N(i, my countrymen ! He must have a gold spoon for soma 
of his dishes, and you will find it hard to believe — plain, 
unpretending, republican farmers as you are, but it is not 
the less true — he must have forks of silver! Fellow-citi- 
zens, Hugh Littlepage would not put his knife into his 
m.oLith, as you and I do, in eating — as all plain, unpretend- 
ing republicans do — for the world. It would choke him; 
no, he keeps silver forks to touch his anointed lips !” Here 
I there was an attempt to get up something like applause, but 
I it totally failed. The men of Ravensnest had been accus- 
j tomed all their lives to see the Littlepages in the social sta- 

! tion they occupied ; and, after all, it did not seem so very 

I extraordinary that we should have silver forks, any more 
than that others should have silver spoons. The lecturer 
j had the tact to see that he had failed on this point, and he 
i turned to another. 

; The next onset was made against our title. Whence 
I did it come? demanded the lecturer. ‘‘‘From the king of 
I England ; and the people had conquered the country from 
I that sovereign, and put themselves in his place. Now, is it 
I not a good principle in politics, that to the victors belong 
I the spoils? He believed it was; and that in conquering 
i America, he was of opinion that the people of America had 
I conquered the land, and that they had a right to take the 
I land, and to keep it. Titles from kings he did not respect 
j much; and he believed the American people, generally, did 
I not think much of them. If Hugh Littlepage wished an 
I “estate,” as he called it, let him come to the people and 

“ sarve them,'' and see what sort of an estate they would 

give him. 

But there was one portion of his speech which was so 
remarkable, that I must attempt to give it, as it was uttered. 
I It was while the lecturer was expatiating on this subject of 

I titles, that he broke out in the following language : — “ Don’t 

I talk to me,” he bellowed — for by this time his voice had 
I risen to the pitch of a methodist’s, in a camp-meeting — . 

I “ Don’t talk to me of antiquity, and time, and length of pos- 

I session, as things to be respected. They ’re nawthin’ — ^jest 
I nawthin’ at all. Possession ’s good in law, I ’ll admit ; and 


THE REDSKINS. 


241 

I contind that ’s jest what the tenants has. They ’ve got the 
lawful possession of this very property, that layeth (not 
I eggs, but) up and down, far and near, and all around ; a 
I rich and goodly heritage, when divided up among hard- 
! working and honest folks ; but too much, by tens of thou- 
j lands of acres, for a young chap, who is wasting his sub- 
I stance in foreign lands, to hold. I contind that the tenants 
I has this very, precise, lawful possession, at this blessed mo- 
ment, only the law won’t let ’em enj’y it. It ’s all owing to 
that accursed law, that the tenant can’t set up a title ag’in 
his landlord. You see by this one fact, fellow-citizens, that 
they are a privileged class, and ought to be brought down 
to the level of gin’ral humanity. You can set up title ag’in 
anybody else, but you shan’t set up title ag’in a landlord. 
I know what is said in the primisis,” shaking his head, in 
derision of any arguments on the other side of this particu- 
lar point ; “ I know that circumstances alter cases. I can 
see the hardship of one neighbour’s coming to another, and 
I asking to borrow or hire his horse for a day, and then pre- 

' tendin’ to hold him on some other ketch. But horses isn’t 

land ; you must all allow that. No, if horses was land, 
the case would be altered. Land is an element, and so ia 
fire, and so is water, and so is air. Now, who will say that 
a freeman hasn’t a right to air, hasn’t a right to water, and, 
on the same process, hasn’t a right to land 1 He has, fellow- 
citizens — he has. These are what are called in philosophy 
elementary rights ; which is the same thing as a right to 
the elements, of which land is one, and a principal one. I 
say a principal one ; for, if there was no land to stand on, 
we should drop away from air, and couldn’t enj’y that; we 
should lose all our water in vapour, and couldn’t put it to 
millin’ and manafacterin’ purposes; and where could we 
build our fires? No ,* land is the ^rst elementary right, and 
connected with it comes the first and most sacred right td 
the elements. 

“ I do not altogether disregard antiquity, neither. No ; 
I respect and revere pre-emption rights ; for they fortify and 
sustain the right to the elements. Now, I do not condemn 
squattin’, as some does. It’s actin’ accordin’ to natur^ and 
natur’ is right. I respect and venerate a squatter’s posses- 
sion ; for it ’s held under the sacred principle of usefulness. 
VoL. J. — 21 


THE REDSKINS. 


242 

It says, * go and make the wilderness blossom as the rose,’ 
and means ‘ progress.’ That ’s an antiquity I respect. 1 
respect the antiquity of your possessions here, as tenants; 
for it is a hard-working and useful antiquity — an antiquity 
that increases and multiplies. If it be said that Hugh Lit- 
tlepage’s ancestors — your noble has his ‘ancestors,’ while 
us ‘ common folks’ are satisfied with forefathers” — [this hit 
took with a great many present, raising a very general 
laugh] — “ but if this Hugh’s ancestors d.id pay anything 
for the land, if I was you, fellow-citizens. I’d be gin’rous, 
and let him have it back ag’in. Perhaps his forefathers 
gave a cent an acre to the king — may be, two ; or say six- 
pence, if you will. I ’d let him have his sixpence an acre ' 
back again, by way of shutting his mouth. No ; I ’m for 
nawthin’ that’s ungin’rous.” | 

“Fellow-citizens, I profess to be what is called a Demo- | 
crat. I know that many of you be what is called Whigs — but I 

I apprehend there is’nt much difference between us on the j 

subject of this system of leasing land. We are all republi- 1 
cans, and leasing farms is anti-republican. Then, I wish 
to be liberal even to them I commonly oppose at elections, 
and I will freely admit, then, on thfe whull, the Whigs have 
rather out-done us Democrats, on the subject of this anti- 
rentism. I am sorry to be obliged to own in it, but it must | 
be confessed that, while in the way of governors, there i 
hasn’t been much difference — yes, put ’em in a bag, and 
shake ’em up, and you’d hardly know which would come 
out first — which has done himself the most immortal honour, 
which has shown himself the most comprehensive, profound 
and safe statesman; I know that some of our people com- 
plain of the governors for ordering out troops ag’in the 
Injins, but they could not hely that — they wouldn’t have 
done it, in my judgment, had there been any way of getting 
round it; but the law was too strong for them, so they 
druv’ in the Injins, and now they join us in putting down 
aristocracy, and in raising up gin’ral humanity. No; I don’t 
go ag’in the governors, though many doos.” 

“ But I profess to be a Democrat, and I’ll give an out- 
line of my principles, that all may see why they can’t, anfll 
don’t, and never will agree with aristocracy or nobility, in 
any form or sh-ape. I believe one man is as good as an 


other in all things. Neither birth, nor law, nor edication, 
nor riches, nor poverty, nor anything else can ever make 
any difference in this principle, which is sacred, and funda- 
mental, and is the chief stone of the corner in true Democracy, 
One man is as good as another, I say, and has just the same 
right to the enj’yment of ’arth and its privileges, as any 
other man. I think the majority ought to rule in all things, 
and that it is the duty of the minority to submit. Now, I’ve 
had this here sentiment thrown back upon me, in some 
places where^ have spoken, and been asked ‘ how is this— 
the majority must rule, and the minority must submit — in 
that case, the minority is’nt as good as the majority in prac- 
tice, and hasn’t the same right. They are made to own 
what they think ought not to be done?’ The answer to this 
is so plain, I wonder a sensible man can ask the question, 
for all the minority has to do, is to join the majority, to have 
things as they want ’em. The road is free, and it is this 
open road that makes true liberty. Any man can fall in 
with the majority, and sensible folks commonly do, when 
they can find it, and that makes a person not only a man, 
as the saying is, but a freeman, a still more honourable 
title.” 

j “ Fellow-citizens, a great movement is in progress, “ Go 
I ahead!” is the cry, and the march is onward; our thoughts 
I already fly about on the wings of the lightning, and our 

j bodies move but little slower, on the vapour of steam — soon 

I our principles will rush ahead of all, and let in the radiance 

of a glorious day of universal reform, and loveliness, and 
i virtue and charity, when the odious sound of rent will never 

I be heard, when every man will set down under his own 

apple, or cherry tree, if not under his own fig tree. 

“ I am a Democrat, — yes, a Democrat. Glorious appel- 
lation ! I delight in it I It is my pride, my boast, my very 
virtue. Let but the people truly rule, and all must come 
I well. The people has no temptation to do wrong. If they 
! hurt the state, they hurt themselves, for they are the state. 
Is a man likely to hurt himself? Equality is my axiom. 
Nor, by equality, do I mean your narrow pitiful equality 
before the law, as it is sometimes tarmed, for that may be 
I no equality at all ; but, I mean an equality that is substan- 
tial, and which must be restored* when the working of the 


THE REDSKINS. 


244 

law has deranged it. Fellow-citizens, do vou know what 
leap-year means? I dare say some of you don’t, the ladies 
in parlic’lar not giving much attention to astronomy. Well, 

1 have inquired, and it is this:—The ’arth revolves around 
the sun in a year, as we all know. And we count three ' 
hundred and sixty-five days in a year, we all know. But, 
the ’arth is a few hours longer than three hundred and sixty- ; 
five days, in making its circuit — nearly six hours longer. 
Now, everybody knows that 4 times 6 makes 24, and so a i 
twenty-ninth day is put into February, every fourth year, to | 
restore the lost time ; another change being to be made a 
long distance ahead to settle the fractions. Thus will it be 
with Democracy. Human natur’ can’t devise laws yet, that 
will keep all things on an exactly equal footing, and political 
leap-years must be introduced into the political calendar, to 
restore the equilibrium. In astronomy, we must divide up 
anew the hours and minutes ; in humanity, we must, from 
time to time, divide up the land.” 

But, I cannot follow this inflated fool any longer; for he 
was quite as much of fool as of knave, though partaking 
largely of the latter character. It was plain that he carried 
many of his notions much farther than a good portion of 
his audience carried theirs ; though, whenever he touched 
upon anti-rentism, he hit a chord that vibrated through the 
whole assembly. That the tenants ought to own their i 
farms, and pay no more rents, and pocket all the bene- 
fits OF their own previous labours, though these 

LABOURS HAD BEEN CONSIDERED IN THE EARLIER RENTS, 
AND WERE, INDEED, STILL CONSIDERED, IN THE LOW RATES 
AT WHICH THE LANDS WERE LET, was a doctrine all could 
understand ; and few were they, I am sorry to say, who did 
not betray how much self-love and self-interest had ob- 
scured the sense of right. 

The lecture, such as it was, lasted more than two hours ; 
and when it was done, an individual rose, in the character 
of a chairman — when did three Americans ever get together 
to discuss anything, that they had not a chairman and se- 
cretary, and all the parliamentary forms? — and invited any 
one present, who might entertain views different from the 
speaker, to give his opinion. Never before did I feel so 
tempted to speak in public. My first impulse was to throw 


THE REDSKINS. 


245 

' away the wig, and come out in my own person, and expose 
the shallow trash that had just been uttered. I believe even 
I, unaccustomed as I was to public speaking, could easily j 
have done this, and I whispered as much to my uncle, who 
was actually on his feet, to perform the office for me, when 
the sound of “ Mr. Chairman,” from a different part of the 
church, anticipated him. Looking round, I recognised at 
once the face of the intelligent mechanic, named Hail, whom 
we had met at Mooseridge, on our way to the Nest. I took 
my seat, at once, perfectly satisfied that the subject was in 
good hands. 

This speaker commenced with great moderation, both of 
manner and tone, and, indeed, he preserved them through- 
out. His utterance, accent and language, of course, were 
all tinctured by his habits and associations ; but his good 
i sense and his good principles were equally gifts from above. 
More of the “ true image of his maker” was to be found in 
that one individual than existed in fifty common men. He 
saw clearly, spoke clearly, and demonstrated effectively. 

As he was well known in that vicinity and generally re- 
spected, he was listened to with profound attention, and 
spoke like a man who stood in no dread of tar and feathers. 

I Had the same sentiments been delivered by one in a fine 
j coat, and a stranger, or even by myself, who had so much 
I at stake, very many of them would have been incontinently 
I set down as aristocratic, and not to be tolerated, the most 
I sublimated lover of equality occasionally falling into these 
I little contradictions. 

I Hall commenced by reminding the audience that they all 
knew him, and knew he was no landlord. He was a me- 
chanic, and a labouring man, like most of themselves, and 
had no interest that could be separate from the general good 
of society. This opening was a little homage to prejudice, 
since reason is reason, and right right, let them come whence 
they will. “ I, too, am a democrat,” he went on to say, 
but I do not understand democracy to mean anything like 
that which has been described by the last speaker. I tell 
that gentleman plainly, that if he is a democrat, I am none, 
and if I am a democrat, he is none. By democracy I un- 
derstand a government in which the sovereign power resides 
in the body of the nation ; and not in a few, or in one. But 
21 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


246 

this principle no more gives the body of the people authority 
to act wrong, than in a monarcJiy, in which the sovereign 
power resides in one man, that one man has a right to act 
wrong. By equality, I do not understand anything more 
than equality before the law — now, if the law had said that 
when the late Malbone Littlepage died, his farms should go 
not to his next of kin, or to his devisee, but to his neigh- 
bours, then that would have been the law to be obeyed, 
although it would be a law destructive of civilization, since 
men would never accumulate property to go to the public. 
Something nearer home is necessary to make men work, 
and deny themselves what they like. 

“The gentleman has told us of a sort of political leap- 
year that is to regulate the social calender. I understand 
him to mean that when property has got to be unequal, it 
must be divided up, in order that men may make a new 
start. I fear he will have to dispense with leap years, and 
come to leap months, or leap weeks, ay, or even to leap 
days ; for, was the property of this township divided up this 
very morning, and in this meetin’-us, it would get to be un- 
equal before night. Some folks can’t keep money when 
they have it; and others can’t keep their hands off it. 

“ Then, again, if Hugh Littlepage’s property is to be 
divided, the property of all of Hugh Littlepage’s neighbours 
ought to he divided too, to make even an appearance of 
equality ; though it would be but an appearance of equality, 
admitting that were done, since Hugh Littlepage has more 
than all the rest of the town put together. Yes, fellow- 
citizens, Hugh Littlepage pays, at this moment, one-twen- 
tieth of the taxes of this whole county. That is about the 
proportion of Ravensnest ; and that tax, in reality, comes 
out of his pockets, as much the greater part of the taxes of 
Rensselaer and Albany counties, if you will except the cities 
they contain, are paid by the Rensselaers. It wun’t do to 
I tell me the tenants pay the taxes, for I know better. We 
I all know that the probable amount of the taxes is estimated 
I in the original bargain, and is so much deducted from the 
1 rent, and comes out of the landlord if it come out of any- 
lx)dy. There is a good reason why the tenant should pay 
it, and a reason that is altogether in his interest; because 
the law would make his oxen, and horses, and carts liable 


THE REDSKINS. 


247 

for the taxes, should the landlord neglect to pay the taxes. 
The collector always sells personals for a tax if he can find 
them on the property ; and by deducting it from the rent, 
and paying it himself, the tenant makes himself secure 
against that loss. To say that a tenant don’t take any 
account of the taxes he will be likely to pay, in making his 
bargain, is as if one should say he is 7ion com. and not fit 
to be trusted with his own affairs. There are men, in this 
community, I am sorry to say, who wish a law passed to 
tax the rents on durable leases, or on all leases, in order to 
choke the landlords off from their claims, but such men are 
true friends to neither justice nor their country. Such a 
law would be a tax on the incomes of a particular class of 
society, and on no other. It is a law that would justify the 
aggrieved parties in taking up arms to resist it, unless the 
law would give ’em relief, as I rather think it would. By 
removing into another State, however, they would escape 
the tax completely, laugh at those who framed it, who would 
incur the odium of doing an impotent wrong, and get laughed 
at as well as despised, besides injuring the State by drawing 
away its money to be spent out of its limits. Think, for 
one moment, of the impression that would be made of New 
York justice, if a hundred citizens of note and standing were 
to be found living in Philadelphia or Paris, and circulating 
to the world the report that they were exiles to escape a 
special taxation 1 The more the matter was inquired into, 
the worse it must appear; for men may say what they 
please, to be ready ag’in election time, as there is but one 
piece, or parcel of property to tax, it is an income tax, and 
nothing else. What makes the matter still worse is, that 
every man of sense will know that it is taxing the samo 
person twice, substantially for the same thing, since the 
landlord has the direct land tax deducted from the rent in 
the original bargain. 

“ As for all this cry about aristocracy, I don’t understand 
it. Hugh Littlepage has just as good a right to his ways as 
I have to mine. The gentleman says he needs gold spoons 
and silver forks to eat with. Well, what of that? I dare 
say the gentleman himself finds a steel knife and fork use- 
ful, and has no objection to a silver, or, at least, to a pewter 


THE REDSKINS. 


248 

spoon. Now, there are folks that use wooden forks, or no 
forks, and who are glad to get horn spoons ; and they might 
call that gentleman himself an aristocrat. This setting of 
ourselves up as the standard in all things is anything but 
liberty. If I don’t like to eat my dinner with a man who 
uses a silver fork, no man in this country can compel me. 

On the other hand, if young Mr. Littlepage don’t -like a com- 
panion who chews tobacco, as I do, he ought to be left to 
follow his own inclination. 

“ Then, this doctrine that one man ’s as good as another 
has got two sides to it. One man ought to have the same 
general rights as another, I am ready to allow ; but if one 
man is as good as another, why do we have the trouble and 
cost of elections? We might draw lots, as we do for jurors, 
and save a good deal of time and money. We all know 
there is ch’ice in men, and I think that so long as the people 
have their ch’ice in sayin’ who shall and who shall not be 
their agents, they ’ve got all they have any right to. So 
long as this is done, the rest of the world may be left to 
follow their own ways, provided they obey the laws, 

“ Then, I am no great admirer of them that are always 
telling the people they ’re parfect. I know this county pretty 
well, as well as most in it ; and if there be a parfect man in : 
Washington county, I have not yet fallen in with him. Ten I 
millions of imparfect men won’t make one parfect man, and I 
so I don’t look for perfection in the people any more than I ! 
do in princes. All I look for in democracy is to keep the 
reins in so many hands as to prevent a few from turning 
everything to their own account ; still, we mustn’t forget 
that, when a great many do go wrong, it is much worse 
than when a few go wrong. 

“ If my son didn’t inherit the property of Malbone Little- 
page, neither will Malbone Littlepage’s son inherit mine. 

We are on a footing in that respect. As to paying rent, 
which some persons think so hard, what would they do if 
they had no house to live in, or farm to work? If folks 
wish to purchase houses and farms, no one can prevent them 
if they have money to do it with ; and if they have not, is 
it expected other people are to provide them with such things 
out of their own ” 


'j? It E REDSKINS. 


249 

Here the speaker was interrupted by a sudden whooping, 
and the Injins came pressing into the house in a way to 
drive in all the’aisles before them. Men, worntm and children 
leaped from the windows, the distance being trifling, while 
others made their escape by the two side-doors, the Injins 
coming in only by the main entrance. In less time than it 
takes to record the fact, the audience had nearly all dis- 
persed. 


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THE 


REDSKINS; 

OR, 

INDIAN AND INJIN 

BEING THE CONCLUSION OF THE 

fittlepage 



BY J. FENIMOEE COOPER. 


In every work regard the writer’s end; 

None e’er can compass more than they intend. — Pope^ 


IN TWO VOLUMES. 

VOL. II. 

I 

NEW EDITION. 


NEW YORK: 

STRINGER AND TOWNSEND. 


1852. 


Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

in the clerk's office of the District Court for the Northern Distnct 
of New York. 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER I. 


“And yet it is said, — Labour in thy vocation: which is as much 
as to say, — let the magistrates be labouring men; and therefore 
should we be magistrates.” 

King Henry VI. 

In a minute or two the tumult ceased, and a singular 
scene presented itself. The church had four separate groups 
or parties left in it, besides the Injins, who crowded the 
main isle. The chairman, secretary, two ministers and lec- 
turer, remained perfectly tranquil in their seats, probably 
understanding quite well they had nothing to fear from the 
intruders. Mr. Warren and Mary were in another corner, 
under the gallery, he having disdained flight, and prudently 
kept his daughter at his side. My uncle and myself were 
the pendants of the two last named, occupying the opposite 
corner, also under the gallery. Mr. Hall, and two or three 
friends who stuck by him, were in a pew near the wall, but 
about half way down the church, the former erect on a seat, 
where he had placed himself to speak. 

“ Proceed with your remarks, sir,” coolly observed the 
chairman, who was one of those paradoxical anti-renters 
who has nothing to do with the Injins, though he knew all 
about them, and, as I have been told, was actually foremost 
in collecting and disbursing their pay. At this instant Se- 
neca Newcome sneaked in at a side door, keeping as far as 
possible from the “ disguised and armed,” but curious to 
ascertain what would come next. 

As for Hall, he behaved with admirable self-possession. 
He probably knew that his former auditors were collecting 

( 3 ) 


THE REDSKINS. 


4 

under the windows, and by raising his voice he would bs 
easily heard. At all events, he did elevate his voice, and 
went on as if nothing had happened. 

“ I was about to say a word, Mr. Chairman, on the natur? 
of the two qualities that have, to me, at least, seemed up- 
permost in the lecturer’s argooment” — yes, this sensible, 
well-principled man actually used that detestable sound, just 
as I have written it, calling ‘ argument’ ‘ argooment’ — what 
a pity it is that so little attention is paid to the very first 
principles of speaking the language well in this country, the 
common schools probably doing more harm than they do 
good in this respect — “ that have, to we, at least, seemed 
uppermost in the lecturer’s argooment, and they are both 
those that God himself has viewed as of so great importance 
to our nature as to give his express commandments about 
them. He has commanded us not to steal, and he has com- 
manded us not to covet our neighbour’s goods ; proof suffi- 
cient that the possession of property is sanctioned by divine 
authority, and that it is endowed with a certain sanctity of 
privilege. Now for the application. 

“ You can do nothing as to leases in existence, because 
the State can’t impair a contract. A great deal is said about 
this government’s being one of the people, and that the peo- 
ple ought to do as they please. Now, I ’m a plain man, 
and am talking to plain men, and mean to talk plainly. 
That this is a government of the people, being a democracy, 
or because the sovereign power, in the last resort, resides 
in the body of the people, is true ; but that this is a govern- 
ment of the people, in the common signification, or as too 
many of the people themselves understand it, is not true. 
This very interest, about which there is so much commo- 
tion, or the right to interfere with contracts, is put beyond 
the people of the State by a clause in the constitution of the 
United States. Now, the constitution of the United States 
might be altered, making another provision saying that ‘ no 
State shall ever pass any law to do away with the existene? 
of durable leases,’ and every man, woman and child in New 
York be opposed to such a change, but they would have to 
swallow it. Come, let us see what figures will do. There 
are twenty-seven States in actual existence, and soon will 
be thirty. I don’t care on which number you calculate ; 


THE REDSKINS. 




^•ay thirty, if you please, as that is likely to be the number 
I before the constitution could be altered. Well, twenty-three 
j of these States can put a clause into the constitution, saying 
you shan’t meddle with leases. This might leave the seven 
most popular States, with every voter, opposed to the change. 
I ’ve made a calculation, and find what the seven most popu- 
lous States had in 1840, and I find that more than half of 
all the population of the country is contained in them seven 
States, which can be made to submit to a minority. Nor 
is this all ; the alteration may be carried by only one vote 
in each of the twenty-three States, and, deducting these from 
the electors in the seven dissenting States, you might have 
a constitutional change made in the country against a ma- 
jority of say two millions ! It follows that the people, in 
the common meaning, are not as omnipotent as some sup- 
pose. There ’s something stronger than the people, after 
all, and that’s principles, and if we go to work to tear to 
pieces our own ” 

It was impossible to hear another word that the speaker 
said. The idea that the people are not omnipotent, was one 
little likely to find favour among any portion of the popula- 
tion that fancies themselves to be peculiarly the people. So 
much accustomed to consider themselves invested with the 
exercise of a power which, in any case, can be rightfully 
exercised by only the whole people, have local assemblages 
got to be, that they often run into illegal excesses, fancying 
even their little fragment of the body politic infallible, as 
well as omnipotent, in such matters at least. To have it 
openly denied, therefore, that the popular fabric of American 
institutions is so put together, as to leave it in the power of 
a decided minority to change the organic law, as is unques- 
tionably the fact in theory, however little likely to occur in 
practice, sounded in the ears of Mr. Hall’s auditors like 
political blasphemy. Those under the windows groaned, 
while the gang in the aisle whooped and yelled, and that in 
a fashion that had all the exaggeration of a caricature. It 
was very apparent that there was an end of all the delibe- 
rative pari of the proceedings of the day. 

Hall seemed neither surprised nor uneasy. He wiped his 
face very coolly, and then took his seat, leaving the Injins 
to dance about the church, flourishing their rifles and knives, 
1 * 


6 THEREDSKINS. 

in a way that might have frightened one less steady. As 
for Mr. Warren, he led Mary out, though there was a move- 
ment that threatened to stop him. My uncle and myself 
followed, the whooping and screaming being really unplea- 
sant to the ear. As to the chairman, the secretary, and the 
two ministers of the gospel, they kept their stations on the 
stage, entirely self-possessed and unmolested. No one went 
near them, a forbearance that must have been owing to the 
often alleged fact that the real anti-renters, the oppressed 
tenantry of New York, and these vile masqueraders, had 
nothing to do with each other ! 

One of the astounding circumstances of the times, is the 
general prevalence of falsehood among us, and the almost 
total suppression of truth. No*matter what amount of evi- 
dence there may be to contradict a statement, or how often 
it has been disproved, it is reaffirmed, with just as much 
assurance, as if the matter had never been investigated ; ay, 
and believed, as if its substance were uncontradicted. I am 
persuaded there i^s no part of the world, in which it is more 
difficult to get a truth into the public mind, when there is a 
motive to suppress it, than among ourselves. This may 
seem singular, when it is remembered how many journals 
there are, which are uttered with the avowed purpose to 
circulate information. Alas ! the machinery which can be 
used to give currency to truth, is equally efficient in giving 
currency to falsehood. There are so many modes, too, of 
diluting truth, in addition to the downright lies which are 
told, that I greatly question if one alleged fact, out of twenty 
that goes the rounds of the public prints, those of the com- 
moner sort excepted, is true in all its essentials. It requires 
so much integrity of purpose, so much discrimination, such 
a sensitiveness of conscience, and often so large a degree of 
self-sacrifice in men to speak nothing but truth, that one is 
not to expect that their more vulgar and irresponsible agents 
are to possess a quality that is so very rare among the very 
best of the principals. 

If I was glad to get out of the church myself, the reader 
may depend on it, I was rejoiced when I saw Mr. Warren 
leading Mary towards tne place where I had left his wagon, 
as if about to quit a scene that now promised nothing but 
clamour and wrangling, if not something more serious. 


THE REDSKINS. 7 

CTncle Ro desired me to bring out the wagon in which we 
had left, the farm ; and, in the midst of a species of general 
panic, in which the women, in particular, went flying about 
in all directions, I proceeded to comply. It was at this 
moment that a general pause to all movements was pro- 
duced by the gang of Injins pouring out of the church, 
wringing in their centre the late speaker, Mr. Hall. As the 
chairman, secretary, lecturer, and the two “ ministers of the 
gospel,” followed, it was conclusive as to the termination of 
anything like further discussion. 

My uncle called me back, and I thought was disposed to 
assist Hall, who, manfully supported by the two or three 
friends that had stood by him the whole day, was now 
moving towards us, surrounded by a cluster of wrangling 
and menacing Injins ,* the whole party bearing no little 
resemblance to a pack of village curs that sets upon the 
strange dog that has ventured in among them. 

Oaths and threats filled the air; and poor Hall’s ears 
were offended by an imputation that, I dare say, they then 
heard for the first time. He was called a “ d d aristo- 
crat,” and a hireling in the pay of “ d d aristocrats.” To 

all this, however, the. sturdy and right-thinking blacksmith 
v/as very indifferent; well knowing there was not a fact 
connected with his existence, or a sentiment of his moral 
being, that w'ould justify any such charge. It was in an- 
swer to this deadly imputation, that I first heard him speak 
again, after he had been interrupted in the church. 

“ Call me what you please,” he cried, in his clear, full 
voice; “I don’t mind hard names. There isn’t a man 
among you who thinks I ’m an aristocrat, or the hireling of 
any one ; but I hope I am not yet so great a knave as to 
wish to rob a neighbour because he happens to be richer 
than I am myself.” 

“Who gave Hugh Littlepage his land?” demanded one, 
in the midst of the gang, speaking without the affectation 
of mimicry, though the covering to his head sufficiently 
changed his voice. “ You know, yourself, it came from 
the king.” 

“ He never worked for an acre of it !” bawled another. 

‘ If he was a hard-working, honest man, like yourself, Tim 


1 


8 THE REDSKINS. | 

Hall, we might bear it; but you knovv he is not. He’s a 
» spendthrift and an aristocrat.” 

“ I know that hard hands don’t make a man honest, any 
more than soft hands make him a rogue,!! answered Tim 
Hall, with spirit. “ As for the Littlepages, they are gentle- 
men in every sense of the word, and always have been. 
Their word will pass even now, when the bond of many a 
man who sets himself up ag’in them wouldn’t be looked at.” j 
I was grateful and touched with this proof that a charac- 
ter, which I fully believed to be merited, was not lost on 
one of the most intelligent men of his class, in that part of ^ 
the country. Envy, and covetousness, and malignancy, 
may lie as they will, but the upright recognize the upright ; 
the truly poor know who most assuage their sorrows and 
relieve their wants; and the real lover of liberty under- 
stands that its privileges are not to be interpreted altogether 
in his own favour. I did not like the idea of such a man’s 
being ill-treated by a gang of disguised blackguards — fel- 
lows, who added to the crime of violating a positive law, 
the high moral offence of prostituting the sacred principles 
of liberty, by professing to drag them into the service of a 
cause, which wanted very little, in its range, to include all 
the pickpockets and thieves in the land. 

“ They will do that noble fellow some injury, I fear,” I 
whispered to my uncle.' | 

“ if it were not for the mortification of admitting our dis- i 
guise, I would go forward at once, and attempt to bring him j 
out of the crowd,” was the answer. “ But that will not do, j 
under the circumstances. Let us be patient, and observe | 
what is to follow.” 

“ Tar and feathers !” shouted some one among the Injins ; 

“ Tar and feather him !” “ Crop him, and send him home !” 

answered others. “ Tim Hall has gone over to the enemy,” 
added the Injin who asked whence I had my lands. 

I fancied I knew that voice, and when its tones had been 
repealed two or three times, it struck me it was that of 
Seneca Newcome. That Seneca was an anti-renter, was i 
no secret ; but that he, a lawyer, would be guilty of the great 
indiscretion of committing felony, was a matter about which 
one might well entertain a doubt. To urge others to be 
guilty, was a different matter, but to commit himself seemed 


THEREDSKINS. 9 

unlikely. With a view to keep an eye on the figure I dis- - 
trusted, I looked out for some mode by which he might be 
known. A patch, or rather goar in the calico, answered 
admirably, for on looking at others, I saw that this goar 
was accidental, and peculiar to that particular dress, most 
probably owing to a deficiency in the material originally . 
supplied. 

All this time, which indeed was but a minute or two, the 
tumult continued. The Injins seemed undetermined what 
to do; equally afraid to carry out their menaces against 
Hall, and unwilling to let him go. At the very instant 
when we were looking for something serious, the storm 
abated, and an unexpected calm settled on the scene. How 
this was effected, I never knew ; though it is reasonable to 
suppose an order had been communicated to the Injins, by 
some signal that was known only to themselves. Of the 
result there was no doubt ; the crowd around Hall opened, 
and that sturdy and uncompromising freeman came out of 
it, wiping his face, looking heated and a little angry. He 
did not yield, however, remaining near the spot, still sup- 
ported by the two or three friends who had accompanied him 
from Mooseridge. 

My uncle Ro, on reflection, conceived it wisest not to seem 
in a hurry to quit the village, and as soon as I had ascer- 
tained that Mr. Warren had come to a similar decision, and 
had actually taken refuge in the house of a parishioner, I 
‘ was agreeable,’ as the English say. While the pedlar, 
therefore, made a new display of his watches, I strolled 
round among the crowd. Injins and others intermixed, to see 
what could be seen, and to glean intelligence. In the course 
of my wanderings, chance brought me close to the side of 
the masquer in the dress with the goar. Tickling him gen- 
tly on the elbow, I induced him to step a little aside with me; 
where our conversation would not be overheard. 

“ Why might you be Injin — gentleman as you be?” I 
asked, with as much of an air of simplicity, as I could 
assume. 

The start with which this question was met, convinced 
me I was right; and I scarce needed farther confirmation 
of the Justice of my suspicion. If I had, however, it was 
afforded. 


THE REDSKINS. 


10 


, “Why ask Injin dat?” returned the man with the 


gear. 

“Veil, dat might do, and it might not do, ’Squire New- 
come; but it might not do wid one as knows you as veil as 
I know you. So dell me ; vy might you be Injin 

“ Harkee,” said Seneca, in his natural speech, and evi- 
dently much disturbed by my discovery; “you must, on no 
account, let it be known who I am. You see, this Injin busi- 
ness is ticklish work, and the law might — that is — you could 
get nothing by mentioning what you know, but as you have 
said, as I’m a gentleman, and an attorney at law, it wouldn’t 
sound well to have it said that I was caught dressed up in 
this manner, playing Injin.” 

“ Ja — ja — I oonderstants — gentlemans might not do 
sich dings, und not be laughed at — dat’s all.” 

“ Ye-e-e-s — that’s all, as you say, so be careful what you 
say, or hint about it. Well, since you’ve found me out, it’s 
my treat. What shall ’t be?” 

This was not very elegant for a ‘ gentleman,’ and ‘ an at- 
torney at law,’ certainly, but, as it belonged to the school of 
Mr. Nevvcome, it struck me it might not be prudent for me 
to betray that I belonged to one of a different sort. Affect- 
ing contentment, therefore, I told him what he pleased, and 
he led me to a store of all business, that was kept by his 
brother, and in which, as I afterwards found, he himself 
was a partner. Here he generously treated me to a glass 
of fiery whiskey, which I managed to spill in a way that 
prevented my being choked. This was adroitly enough 
effected, as a refusal to drink would have been taken as^a 
most vsuspicious circumstance in a German. As respects 
Americans of my assumed class, I am happy to say it is now 
more possible for one to refuse a glass than to accept it. It 
says a good deal in favour of the population of a country, 
when even the coachman declines his whet. Nevertheless, 
a nation may become perfectly sober, and fall away with 
fearful rapidity on other great essentials. On the subject of 
sobriety, I agree altogether with my uncle, in thinking that 
the Americans drink much less than most, if not less tha'n any 
European nation; the common notion that long prevailed to 
the contrary in the country, being no more than the fruits 
of the general disposition, in other people, to decry tfemo- 


j TIIEREDSKINS. 

cracy, aided somewhat, perhaps, by the exaggerations that 
i are so common in all the published statistics of morals. 

I I remarked that very few even of the Injins drank, though 
j they now began to circulate freely among the crowd and in | 
j the stoi'es. Seneca left me as soon as he fancied he had \ 

j clenched my discretion with a treat, and I stood looking | 

j round at the manner in which the “armed and disguised” | 

I conducted themselves. One fellow, in particular, attracted i 

I my attention ; and his deportment may be taken as a speci- 
I men of that of many of his comrades. 

' I was soon struck by the fact that Orson Newcome, Se- 
i neca’s brother and partner, was obviously desirous of hav- 

I ing as little to do with any of the Injins as possible. As 

[ soon as one entered his store, he appeared uneasy; and 

whenever one left it, he seemed glad. At first, I was in- 
clined to think that Orson, — what names will not the great 
eastern family adopt, before they have got through with their I 
I catalogue ! — really, they seem to select their appellations j 

I as they do so many other things, or to prove that they ’ll j 

I do as they please ; — but, Orson, I fancied at first, was influ- 
[ enced by principle, and did not care to conceal the disgust 
I he felt at such audacious and illegal proceedings. But I j 

j soon discovered my mistake, by ascertaining the true cause I 

I of his distaste for the presence of an Injin. | 

I “ Injin want calico, for shirt” — said one of these worthies j 
j significantly, to Orson, who, at first, affected not to hear | 

I him. j 

I The demand was repeated, however, with additional sig- j 
j nificance, when the cloth was reluctantly thrown on the j 

j counter. i 

j “ Good,” said the Injin, after examining the quality ; | 

i “ cut Injin twenty yard — measure, hear !” j 

The calico was cut, with a sort of desperate submission ; j 
the twenty yards "were folded, enveloped, and handed to the i 
I customer, who coolly put the bundle under his arm, saying, j 

I fts he turned to leave the store — “Charge it to Down Rent.” 

The mystery of Orson’s sullenness was now explained. 

I As invariably follows the abandonment of principle, the 
i fomenters of wrong were suffering smartly through the en- 
I croachments of their own agents. I ascertained, afterwards, 

! that these very Injins, who had been embodied in hundreds, 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


1'2 

with a view to look down law, and right, and the sacred 
character of contracts, had begun to carry out their main 
principle; and were making all sorts of demands, on the 
pockets and property of their very employers, under one 
pretence or another, but with very obvious tendencies to- 
wards their own benefit. The “ Spirit of anti-Rentism” was 
beginning to develope itself in this form, under the system 
of violence; as, under that of legislative usurpation, and 
legislative truckling to numbers, which is most to be feared 
from the character of our representatives, it will as cer- 
tainly be developed, unless suppressed in the bud, by such 
further demands on its complaisant ministers, as will either 
compel them to repent of their first false step, will drive the 
State to civil war, or will drive all the honest men out of it. 

I did not remain long in the store. After quitting it, I 
went in quest of Mr. Warren and Mary, anxious to know 
if I could be of any service to them. The father thanked 
me for this attention, and let me know that he was now 
about to quit the village, as he saw -others beginning to go 
away, among whom were Hall, who was an old and much 
valued acquaintance of Jiis, and whom he had invited to stop 
at the rectory to dine. He advised us to imitate the exam- 
ple, as there were strangers among the Injins, who might 
be addicted to drinking. 

On this information I hunted up my uncle, who had ac- 
tually sold most of his trinkets, and all his watches but one, 
the secret of his great success being the smallness of his 
prices. He sold for what he had bought, and in some in- 
stances for even less, quitting the place with the reputation 
of being the most reasonable jewel-pedlar who had ever 
appeared in it. 

The road was beginning to be lined with vehicles carry- 
ing home the people who had collected to hear the lecture. 
As this was the first occasion which offered for witnessing 
such an exhibition, since my return, I examined the differ- 
ent parties we passed, with a view to comparison. There 
is a certain air of rusticity, even in the large towns of Ame- 
rica, which one does not meet with in the capitals of the old 
world. But the American country is less rustic^than any 
part of the world with which I am acquainted, England 
alone excepted. Of course, in making such a remark, no 


THE REDSKINS. 


13 

allusion is intended to tlie immediate environs of very large 
towns; though 1 am far from certain that the population of 
St. Ouen, the Runnymede of France, and which stands 
within a league of the walls of Paris, would not have offered 
a more decidedly rustic spectacle, than that which we then 
saw. As respects females, this was very strikingly true ; 
scarce one being visible who had that air of coarseness, and 
ignorance, and vulgarity, which denotes a degraded condi- 
tion and a life of hardships. There was little apparent that 
marked a peasantry in the moral sense of the word ; but the 
whole population seemed to be at their ease, using neat and 
well-kept vehicles ; solid, active horses ; and being them- 
selves reasonably well, though not very tastefully clad. 
Yet, all this was on a leased estate, under the dire oppres- 
sion of. a landlord, and beneath the shadow of aristocracy ! 
A short vhich took place between my uncle and 

two St- Wv-u. ...,! -beaten husbandmen, who drove their 
h a short distance, on a walk at the side of ours, 

made the impression produced by such facts deeper than it 
might otherwise have been. I will relate it. 

“ You are Jarmans, I b’lieve,” commenced the oldest of 
the two men, a grey-headed tenant of my own, of the name 
of Holmes, who was well known to us both — “Jarmans, 
from the old countries, I hear?” 

“ Ja — we bees from der olt coontries ; und dat is a great 
vay off.” 

“ Ye-e-s, I s’pose it is — I ’ve heern tell of them countries, 
often. Doos the landlord system exist there?” 

“ Ja — dere ist ’landtlorts all ofer dis worlt, I do dinks; 
und denants, doo.” 

“ Well, and how is the plan liked there; or be folks think- 
ing of getting red (rid) on’t?” 

“ Nein — how might dey gets red of it? It ist der law, 
you might see, und vhat ist der law moost be done.” 

This answer puzzled old Holmes a good deal. He passed 
a hand over his face, and turned to h's companion, one 
Tubbs, also a tenant on my estate, as if to ask assistance. 
Tubbs was one of the new school ; a school that makes 
more laws than it respects, and belongs to the movement. 
He is a man that fancies the world never knew anything 

VoL. II.— 2 


1 


14 THEREDSKINS. 

of principles, facts, or tendencies, until the commencement 
of this century. 

“ What sort of a government had you, in your own coun- 
try?” demanded Tubbs. 

“ Bretty goot. Mein coontry was Preussen ; und dat might 
be t’ought a bretty goot gofernment.” 

“Yes, but it’s a kingly government, I take it; — it seems 
to me, I have heern tell of kings in that land.” 

“ Ja, ja — dere ist ein koenig — one king. De last might 
be der goet koenig Vilhelm, und now dere ist his son, who 
ist a goot koenig, too, as I might dink. Ja, ja — dere ist a 
king.” 

“ That explains it all,” cried Tubbs, with a sort of tri- 
umph. “ You see, they have a king, and so they have 
tenants; but, here we have no king, and we have no need 
of landlords. Every man, in a free country, should be his 
own landlord; that’s my doctrine, and to thart I’ll stick. 

“ There is some reason in that, frfnd ; isn’t that your 
idee ?” asked Holmes. 

“ A^ell, I might not oonderstandt. Dost der shentlemans 
object to landlordts, in his coontry, because dere might be 
landlordts in .dem coontries ast might haf kings'?” 

“ That ’s it ! That ’s just the reason on’t, and the true 
principle !” answered Tubbs. “ Kings and liberty can’t go 
together, and landlords and liberty can’t go together.” 

“ But, might not der law in dis coontry be to haf land- 
lordts, too ? 1 hear dat it ist so.” 

“ Yes, that is the law, as it stands ; but we mean to alter 
it, all. We have got so many votes, now, as to be sure 
to have both parties with us, at a gin’ral election ; and give 
us the governor on our side, with the sartainty of votes 
enough to turn an election, and we ’re pretty confident of suc- 
cess. Votes is all that is wanting, in a truly free country, 
for men to have things pretty much in their own way.” 

“ Und dost you mean to haf not’in dat might be in de 
coontries ast haf kings?” 

“ To be sure not. What do we want of any of your 
lordly contrivances, to make the rich richer, and the poor 
Doorer.” , 

“ Veil, you moost alter de law of nature, if de rich vilt 


THE REDSKINS. 15 

not get riches, und de poor vill not feel dey be poor. Do 
piple dells us dat de misery of de poor ist deir poverty.” 

“ Ay, ay, bible talk don’t go for much in politics. Sabba’ 
days are set aside for the bible, and week days for public 
and private matters. Now, here is Hugh Liltlepage, of the 
same flesh and blood as my neighbour Holmes and myself 
be — no better and no worse ; yes, I ’m willing to allow he ’s 
no worse, in the main, though in some things I do think we 
might claim the preference; but I’ll allow he’s no worse, 
for the sake of argooment. Each on us rents a farm of this 
Littlepage, of a hundred acres good. Wa-al, this land 
we till, and crop, and labour, with our hands, and the hands 
of our sons, and hired help, perhaps ; and yet we have to 
pay fifty dollars a-piece, annually, to that youngster Hugh 
Littlepage, for rent ; which money he takes and squanders 
where he plea.ses, in riotous livin’, for ’t we know. Now, 
is that right, I ask ; and isn’t it an onsuitable state of things 
for a republican country ?” 

“ Und you dinks yoong Littlebage might spend his money 
in riotous lifin’ in foreign landts?” 

“ Sartain — that ’s the tale, hereabouts ; and I have seen a 
man who knows another, that has an acquaintance who has 
been in Paris, and who tells the people of his neighbourhood 
that he stood at the door of the king’s palace one day, and 
actually saw both the Littlepages going in to pay ‘ tribute 
unto Caesar,’ as it is called — I suppose you know; and they 
tell me that all that goes to see a king, has to kneel and kiss 
his hand — some say his toe. Do you happen to know how 
it is in the old countries ?” 

“ It ist not so ; I haf seen more kings as half a dozen, 
und dey dost not kneel down and kiss deir hants, except on 
sartain business. Dey might not allvays hear what ist true, 
in dis country.” 

“ Wa-a-1, I don’t know — I never was there to see,” an- 
swered Tubbs, in that peculiar manner, which, whenever it 
ts used by an American, may safely be interpreted to mean, 
“ I ’ll not contradict you, but I ’ll believe what I please.” 
That is what I ’ve heern say. But, why should we pay 
rent to young Littlepage to spend in riotous living?” 

“ I might not know, oonless you haf hiret his landt, und 


THE REDSKINS. 


IG 

agree’ t to pay him rent ; in which case you might do as you j 
agree’t.” 

But when the bargain’s of a kingly natur’, I say no. 
Every country has its natur’, and every government has its 
natur’, and all things should be in conformity with natur’. 
Now its ag’in natur’ to pay rent in a republican country. We 
want nothing here, that’s in common with lords and kings.” 

“ Veil, den, you most alter your whole country. You 
might not haf wifes und children ,* you might not lif in 
houses, and plough de landt ; you might not eat und drink, 
und you might not wear any shirt.” 

Tubbs looked a little astonished. Like the Bourgeois 
Gentilhomme, he was amazed to find he had been talking 
prose all his life without knowing it. There is no question 
that laws unsuitable to the institutions of a republic might 
exist in a kingdom, but it is equally certain that the law 
which compels the tenant to pay for the use of his house, or 
farm, is not one of the number. Tubbs, however, had been 
so thoroughly persuaded, by dint of talking, there was some- 
thing exceedingly anti-republican in one man’s paying rent 
to another, that he was not disposed to give the matter up 
so easily. 

“ Ay, ay,” he answered, “ we have many things in com- 
mon with kingdoms, as men, I must allow ; but why should 
we have anything in common of this aristocratic natur’? 

A free country should contain freemen, and how can a man 
be free if he doesn’t own the jand out of which he makes his 
living?” 

“ Und if he makes his lifin’ out of anoder man’s land, he 
might be honest enough to pay for its use, I dinks.” 

“ But, we hold it ought not to be another man’s land, but 
the land of him who works it.” j 

“ Dell me dis — dost you efer let out a field to a poor j 
neighbour on shares?” I 

“ Sartain ; we all do that, both to accommodate folks, and | 
to get crops when we are crowded with work ourselves.” ■ 
“ Und why might not all dat crop pelong to him dat works I 
de field ?” I 

“ Oh ! that’s doin’ business on a small scale, and can’t do i 
anybody harm. But the American institutions never in- I 


THE REDSKINS. 


17 


I 


.ended that there should be a great privileged class among 
us, like the lords in Europe.” j 

“ Did you efer haf any difficulty in getting your hire for I 
a field dat might be so let out?” 

“ Sartain. There’s miserable neighbours as well as them 
that isn’t. I had to sue the very last chap I had such deal- 
in’s with.” 

“ Und dit das law let you haf your money?” 

“ To be sure it did ! What would law be good for, if it 
didn’t help a body to his rights?” 

“ Und dost den tenants of dis broperty let Hugh Littlebage 
haf his rents, ast might be due?” 

“ That’s a different thing, I tell you. Hugh Littlepage 
has more than he wants, and spends his money in riotous 
livin’ in foreign parts.” 

“ Veil, und sooppose your neighpours might vants to ask 
you what you do wit’ your tollars after you shall sell your 
pork and beef, to see you mate goot use of it — might dat be 
liperty ?” 

“ That ! Why, who do you think would trouble himself 
about my ’arnin’s. It’s the big fish, only, that folks talk 
about, and care about, in such matters.” 

“ Den folks make Hugh Littlebage a big fish, by dair own 
mettlin’, und enfy, und cofetousness — is it not so?” 

“ Harkee, fri’nd, I some think you’re loanin’ yourself to 
kingly ways, and to the idees in which you was brought up. 
Take my advice, and abandon all these notions as soon as 
you can, for they’ll never be' popular in this part of the 
world.” 

Popular ! How broad has the signification of this word 
got to be! In the eyes of two-thirds of the population it 
already means, ‘ what is right.’ Vox popvli, vox dei. To 
what an extent is this little word made to entwine itself 
around all the interests of life! When it is deemed expe- 
dient to inculcate certain notions in the minds of the people, 
the first argument used is to endeavour to persuade the inha- 
bitants of New York that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania 
are already of that mind. A simulated public opinion is the 
strongest argument used, indeed, on every occasion of the 
public discussion of any disputed point. He that can count 
the most voices is a better man than he who can give the 
2 * 


18 THE KEDSKINS. 

most reasons ; numbers carrying more weight with them, 
than facts, or law. It is evident, that, while in some things, 
such a system may work well, there are others, and those 
of overshadowing importance, in which its tendency is direct 
and fearful towards corruption. 

As soon as Tubbs had given his admonition, he applied 
the whip to his horse, and trotted on, leaving us to follow at 
the best gait we could extort from Tom Miller’s hack. 

4 


CHAPTER II. 

« If he were with me, King of Tuscarora, 

Gazing as I upon thy portrait now, 

In all its medalled, fringed, and bearded glory, 

Its eyes’ dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow — 

Its brow, half-martial and half-diplomatic ; 

Its eye, upsoaring, like an eagle’s wings; 

Well might he boast that we, the democratic, 

Outrival Europe — even in our kings.” 

Eed Jacket. 

My uncle Ro said nothing, when the two tenants left us ; 
though I saw, by his countenance, that he felt all the ab- 
surdity of the stuff we had just been listening to. We had 
got within half a mile of the woods, when eight Injins came 
galloping up to a wagon that was directly behind us, and 
which contained another of my tenan4;s, with his eldest son, 
a lad of sixteen, whom he had brought with him as a scho- 
lar, in having his sense of right unsettled by the selfish 
mystification that was going on in the land ; a species of 
fatherly care that was of very questionable merit. • I said 
there were eight of these Injins, but there were only four 
horses, each beast carrying double. No sooner did the 
leaders of the party reach the wagon I have mentioned 
than it was stopped, and its owner was commanded to alitxht. 
The man was a decided down-renter, but he obeyed the 
order with a very ill grace; and did not obey at all,"indeed, 
until he was helped out of the wagon, by a little gentle 


THE REDSKINS. 


19 

violence of this fragment of his own corps d^armee. The 
boy was soon put into the highway, when two of the “ dis- 
j guised and armed” leaped into the vacant places, and drove 
on, passing us at a furious pace, making a parting nod to 
the owner of the vehicle, and consoling him for its tempo- 
rary loss, by calling out, “Injin want him — Injin good 
fellow — you know.” 

Whether the discomfited farmer Jcneiv or not, we could 
not tell ; but he looked as if he wished the Injins anywhere 
but in their “ happy hunting grounds.” We drove on 
laughing, for it was in human nature to be amused at such 
an exhibition of the compulsory system, or of “ liberty and 
equality carried out;” and more particularly so, when I 
was certain that the “ honest, hard-working, horny-hand 
tiller of the soil,” wanted to cheat me out of a farm ; or, to 
put his case in the most favourable point of view, wanted 
to compel me to sell him one at his own price. Nor did aur 
amusement stop here. Before we reached the woods, we 
found Holmes and Tubbs in the highway, too ; the other 
two worthies who had been mounted en croupe having dis- 
possessed them of their vvagon also, and told them to 
“ charge it to Injin.” We afterwards learned that this 
practice was very general ; the owner recovering his horse 
and team, in the course of a few days, by hearing it had 
been left, secretly, at some tavern within a few miles of his 
residence. As for old Holmes, he was in an honest indig- 
nation when we came up with him, while even Tubbs 
looked soured and discontented, or as if he thought friends 
were entitled to better treatment. 

“ Vhat ist der matter?” cried out uncle Ro, who could 
hardly keep from laughing the whole time; “vhat ist der 
matter now ? Vhere might be your hantsome vaggin and 
your gay horse ?” 

“ It ’s too bad ! — yes, it ’s eeny most too bad !” grunted 
Holmes. “ Here am I, past three-score-and-ten, which is 
the full time of man, the bible says — and what the bible 
says 7nust be true, you know ! — here have they trundled me 
into the highway, as they would a sack of potatoes, and 
left me to walk every step of four miles to reach my own 
door ! It ’s too bad — it ’s eeny most too bad !” 


20 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ Oh ! dat might be a trifle, compared to vhat it vould 
be to haf peen drundelled out of your farm.” ! 

“ I know ’t ! — I know ’t ! — I understand ! — i ’fs all meant i 
for the good cause — lo put down aristocracy, and make 
men raa’ly equal, as the law intends them lo be — but this, i 
I say, is eeny most too bad !” ' j 

“ Und you so olt !” | 

“ Seventy-six, if I ’m a day. My time can’t be long, and | 
my legs is weak, they be. Yes, the bible says a man’s i 
time is limited pretty much to three-score-and-ten — and I ’ll | 
never stand out ag’in the bible.” | 

“ Und vhat might der piple say apout vanting to haf | 
your neighpours’ goots ?” , j 

“ It cries that down dreadfully ! Yes, there ’s plenty of ! 

that in the good book, I know from havin’ heard it read — I 

ay, and havin’ read it myself, these three-score years ; it 
doos cry it down, the most awfully. I shall tell the Injins j 
this, the next time they want my wagon. There’s bible j 

ag’in all sich practices.” j 

“ Der piple ist a goot pook.” | 

“ That it is — that it is — and great is the consolation and ! 

hope that I have known drawn from its pages. I’m glad to j 

find that they set store by the bible in Jarmany. I was i 
pretty much of the notion, we had most of the religion that’s I 

goin’, in Ameriky, and it’s pleasant to find there is some j 

in Jarmany.” j 

All this time old Holmes was puffing along on foot, my j 
uncle Ro walking his horse, in order to enjoy his discourse. 

“ Oh ! ja — ^ja, ja — dere might be some religion left in der 
olt work — de puritans, as you might call dem, did not pring 
it all away.” 

“ Desp’rate good people them ! We got all our best sar- 
cumstances from our puritan forefathers. Some folks say 
that all Ameriky has got, is owing to them very saints !” 

“ Ja — und if it bees not so, nefer mind; for dey will be 
sartain to get all Ameriky.” 

Holmes was mystified, but he kept tugging on, casting 
wistful glances at our wagon, as he endeavoured to keep I 
up with it. Fearful we might trot on and leave him, the ' 
old man continued the discourse. “ Yes,” he said, “our 
authority for everything must come from the bible, a’ ter all. I 


THE REDSKINS. 


21 

h tells us we hadn’t ought to bear malice, and that’s a rule 
I endivour to act up. to; for an old man, you see, can’t 
indulge his sinful natur’ if he would. Now, I’ve been down 
to Little Neest to attend a Down Rent Meetin’, — but I bear 
no more malice ag’in Hugh Littlepage, not I, no more than 
if he wern’t a bit of my landlord ! All I want of him is my 
farm, on such a lay as I can live by, and the b’ys a’ter me. 
I look on it as dreadful hard and oppressive that the Little- 
pages should refuse to let us have the place, seein’ that I 
have worked it now for the tarm of three whull lives.” 

“ Und dey agreet dat dey might sell you de farm, when 
dem dree lifes wast up?” 

“ No, not in downright language they didn’t, as I must 
allow. In the way of bargain, I must own the advantage 
IS altogether on the side of Littlepage. That was his 
grand’ther’s act; and if you wun’t -drive quite so fast, as I’m 
getting a little out of wind, I’ll tell you all about it. That 
is just what we complain on ; the bargain being so much in 
his favour. Now, my lives have hung on desp’rately, 
haven’t they, Shabbakuk?” appealing to Tubbs. “It’s 
every hour of forty-five years sin’ I tuck that lease, and one 
life, that of my old woman, is still in bein’, as they call it, 
though it’s a sort of bein’ that a body might as well not 
have as have. She can’t stand it a great while longer, and 
then that farm that I set so much store by, out of which I’ve 
made my livelihood most of my life, and on which I’ve 
brought up fourteen children, will go out of my hands to 
enrich Hugh Littlepage, who’s got so much now he can’t 
spend it at hum like honest folks, but must go abroad, to 
{ waste it in riotous living, as they tell us. Yes, onless the 

I governor and the legislature helps me out of my difficulty, I 

! don’t see but Hugh Littlepage must get it all, making the 

j ‘ rich richer, and the poor poorer.’ ” 

i “ Und vhy must dis cruel ding come to pass ? Vhy 
I might not mans keep his own in Ameriky?” 
i “ That’s jest it, you see. It isn’t my own, in law, only 
! by natur’, like, and the ‘ speret of the Institutions,’ as they 
^ call it. I’m sure I don’t kear much how I get it, so it only 

j comes. If the governor can only make the landlords sell, 

I or even give away, he may sartainly count on my support, 


THE REDSKINS 


22 

providin’ they don’t put the prices too high. I hate high 
prices, which is onsuitable to a free country.” 

“Fery drue. I sooppose your lease might gif you 
dat farm quite reasonaple, as it might be mate so long 
ago ?” 

“ Only two shillings the acre,” answered the old fellow, 
with a knowing look, which as much as boasted of the 
capital bargain he had in the affair, “ or twenty-five dollars 
a year for a hundred acres. That’s no great matter, I’m 
ready to allow ; but my lives havin’ held on so desp’rately, 
until land’s got up to forty dollars an acre about here, I 
can’t no more expect sich another lay than I can expect to 
go to Congress. I can rent that place, to-morrow mornin’, 
for 8150 of as good money as any man can pay.” 

“ Und how much might you expect ’squire Littlebage 
woult ask on a new lease ?” 

“ Some think as much as $62.50 ; though other some 
think he would let it go to me for $50, for three lives longer. 
The old gin’ral told me when he signed the lease that I was 
gettin’ a bargain, ‘ but, niver mind,’ said he, ‘ if I give you 
good tarms, ‘ you’ll make the better tenant, and 1 look to 
posterity and their benefit as much as I do to my own. If 
I don’t get the advantage I might,’ says he, ‘ my children, 
or my children’s children, will. A man mustn’t altogether 
live for himself in this world, especially if he has children.’ 
Them was good idees, wasn’t they ?” 

“ You might not dink differently. Und, how moch woult 
you love to bay for a deet of de farm ?” 

“ Wa-a-1, there’s differences of opinion on that subject. 
The most approved notion is, that Hugh Littlepage ought to 
be made to give warrantees, with full covenants, a^ it ’s call- 
ed ; and covenants is all in all, in a' deed, you know ” 

But might not be in a lease ?” put in uncle Ro, some- 
what drily. 

“ That depinds — But, some say them deeds ought to be 
given, if the tenants allow the landlords the worth of the 
land, when the patentee got it, and interest down to the pre- 
sent day. It does seem a desp’rate price to pay for land, to 
give principal and interest, and to throw in all that has been 
paid beside?” 


THE REDSKINS. 


23 


“ Haf you made a calculation, to see vhat it might come 
to?” 

“ Shabbakuk has — tell the gentleman, Shabbakuk, how 
much you made it come to, the acre.” 

Shabbakuk was a far deeper rogue than his neighbour 
Holmes. The last was merely a man of selfish and narrow 
views, who, from passing a long life with no other object 
before him than that of scraping together property, had got 
his mind completely ensnared in the meshes of this world’s 
net; whereas, his companion took the initiative^ as the 
French have it, in knavery, and not only carried out, but 
invented the schemes of the wicked. He clearly did not 
like this appeal to his arithmetic, but having no suspicion to 
whom he was talking, and fancying every man in the lower 
conditions of life must be an ally in a plan to make the “ rich, 
poorer ; and the poor, richer ;” he was a little more commu- 
nicative than might otherwise have been the case. After 
reflecting a moment, he gave us his answer, reading from a 
paper in his hand, on which the whole sum had been elabo- 
rately worked for the occasion of the late meeting. 

“ The land was worth ten cents an acre, maybe, when 
the first Littlepage got it, and that is a liberal price. Now, 
that was eighty years since, for we don’t count old Herman 
Mordaunt’s time, as anything; seeing that the land was 
worth next to nothin’, in his time. The interest on ten cents 
at 7 per cent, is 7 mills a year, or 560 mills for 80 years. 
This is without compound ; compound being unlawful, and 
nothin’ ag’in law should be taken into the account. Add 
the 10 cents to the 560 mills, and you get 660 mills, or 
66 cents. Now this sum, or a sum calculated on the same 
principles,_all the tenants are willing to pay for their farms,'^ 
and if justice prevails they will get them.” 

“ Dat seems but little to bay for landt dat might now rent 
for a dollar an acre, each year.” 

“ You forgit that the Littlepages have had the rent these 
eighty years, the whull time.” 


^ In order that the reader may understand Mr. Hugh Littlepage is 
not inventing, I will add that propositions still more extravagant than 
these have been openly circulated among the anti-renters, up and down 
the country. — Editor. 


24 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ Und de denants haf hat de farms dese eighty years, de 
whole time, too.” 

“ Oh ! we put the land ag’in the work. If my neighbour 
Holmes, here, has had his farm forty-five years, so the farm 
has had his work forty-five years, as an off-set. You may 
depind on ’t the governor and the legislature understand all 
that.” 

“ If dey does,” answered Uncle Ro, whipping his horse 
mto a trot, “ dey must be fit for deir high stations. It is 
goot for a country to haf great governors, and great jegis- 
ladurs. Guten Tag^ 

Away he went, leaving neighbour Holmes, Shabbakuk 
Tubbs, the governor and legislature, with their joint morals, 
wisdom, logic and philosophy, in the highway, together. 
My uncle Ro shook his head, and then he laughed, as the 
absurdity of what had just passed forced itself on his imagi- 
nation. 

I dare say many may be found, who have openly pro- 
fessed principles and opinions identical, in substance, with 
what has just been related here, who will be disposed to 
deny them, when they are thrown into their faces. There 
is nothing unusual in men’s refusing to recognise their own 
children, when they are ashamed of the circumstances that 
brought them into being. But, in the course of this contro- 
versy, I have often heard arguments in discourse, and have 
often read them in the journals, as they have been put into 
the mouths of men in authority, and that too in their public 
communications, which, stripped of their very thin coverings, 
are pretty much on the level with those of Holmes and Tubbs, 
I am aware that no governor has, as yet, alluded to the hard- 
ships of the tenants, under the limited leases, but it would 
be idle to deny that the door has been opened to principles, 
or, a want of principles, that must sweep away all such 
property in the current of reckless popular clamour, unless 
the evil be soon arrested. I s^y evil, for it must prove a 
curse to any community to break down the securities of 
property, as it is held in what has hitherto been thought its 
most secure form, and, what is still of more importance in a 
moral point of view, all to appease the cravings of cupidity, 
as they are exhibited in the masses. 

We were soon out of sight of Holmes and Tubbs, and in 


THE REDSKINS. 


25 

the woods. I confess that I expected, each instant, to over- 
take Hall in the hands of the Injins; for the movement 
among that class of persons had appeared to me as one di- 
rected particularly against him/ We saw nothing of the 
sort, however, and had nearly reached the northern limits 
of the bit of forest, when we came in sight of the two 
wagons which had been so cavalierly taken possession of, 
and of the two horses ridden by the mounted men. The 
whole were drawn up on one side of the highway, under the 
charge of a single Injin, in a manner to announce that we 
were approaching a point of some interest. 

My uncle and myself fully expected to be again stopped, 
as we drove up to the place just mentioned ; not only was 
he track of the road left clear, however, but we were suf 
j fered to pass without a question. All the horses had been 
in a lather, as if driven very hard ; though, otherwise, there j 
was nothing to indicate trouble, if we except the presence j 
of the solitary sentinel. From this fellow, neither sign, nor j 
order molested us ; but on we went, at Tom Miller’s horse’s 
favourite amble, until we were so near the verge of the 
wood, as to get a view into the open fields beyond. Here, 
indeed, we obtained a sight of certain movements that, I 
i confess, gave me some little concern. 

I Among the bushes that lined the highway, and which 
have been already mentioned, I got a glimpse of several of 
the “disguised and armed,” who were evidently lying in 
ambush. Their number might have been twenty in all ; 

and, it was now sufficiently apparent, that those who had 

pressed the wagons had been hurrying forward to re-enforce 
; their party. At this point, I felt quite certain we should 

i De stopped ; but we were not. We were suffered to pass 

without question, as we had just passed the wagons and 
horses, though it must have been known to the party that 
we were fully aware of their presence at that particular 
spot. But, on we went, and were soon, unmolested, in the 
open country. 

It was not long, however, before the mystery was ex- 
plained. A road descended from the higher ground, which 
lay to the westward of us, a little on our left, and a party 
of men was coming down it, at a quick walk, which, at 
the first glance, I mistook for a detachment of the Injins ; 
VoL. II. — 3 


2G THEREDSKINS. 

but which, at a second look, I ascertained to be composed 
of Indians, or real red men. The difference between the 
two is very great, as every American will at once admit, 
though many who read tms manuscript will be obliged to 
me for an explanation. There is “ Indian” and “ Injin.” 
The Injin is a white man, who, bent on an unworthy and 
illegal purpose, is obliged to hide his face, and to perform 
his task in disguise. The Indian is. a red man, who is nei- 
ther afraid, nor ashamed, to show his countenance, equally 
to friend or enemy. The first is the agent of designing 
demagogues, the hireling of a discontented and grasping 
spirit, who mocks at truth and right by calling himself one 
who labours to carry out “ the spirit of those Institutions” 
which he dishonours and is afraid to trust ; while the other 
serves himself only, and is afraid of nothing. One is skulk- 
ing from, and shirking the duties of civilization, while the 
other, though a savage, is, at least, true to his own profes- 
sions. 

There they were, sure enough, a party of some sixteen 
or eighteen of the real aborigines. It is not an uncommon 
thing to meet with an Indian, or two, strolling about the 
country selling baskets — formerly it was brooms of birch, 
but the march of improvement has nearly banished so rude 
a manufacture from the country — with a squaw, or two, in 
company ; but it is now very unusual to meet a true Indian 
Tvarrior in the heart of the State, carrying his rifle and 
tomahawk, as was the case with all those who were so 
swiftly descending the road. My uncle Ro was quite as 
much astonished as I was myself; and he pulled up at the 
junction of the two highways, in order to await the arrival 
of the strangers. 

“ These are real Redskins, Hugh — and of a noble tribe,” 
cried my uncle, as a still nearer approach gave him a better 
and better view. “ Warriors of the West, out of all question, 
with one white man in attendance — what can such a party 
possibly want at Ravensnest !” 

“ Perhaps the anti-renters intend to enlarge their plans, 
and have a scheme to come out upon us, with an alliance 
formed with the true sons of the forest — may they not intend 
intimidation?” 

“ Whom could they thus intimidate, but their own wives 


THE REDSKINS. 


27 

ond children? But, here they come, in a noble body, and 
j we can speak to them.” 

I There they did come, indeed; seventeen of the finer spc- 
j cimens of the Redskins, as they are now sometimes seen pass- 
j ing among us in bodies, moving to or from their distant 
prairies; for the white man has already forced the Indian, 
with the bears, and the elk, and the moose, out of the forests 
of America, upon those vast plains. 

What is to be the end of the increase of this nation, is one 
of the mysteries of Divine Providence. If faithful to the 
right, if Jvsf, not in the sense of yielding to the clamours of 
the many, but in the sense of good laws, if true to them- 
selves, the people of this republic may laugh at European 
interference and European power, when brought to bear on 
their home interests, as so much of the lumbering policy of 
ages no longer suited to the facts and feelings of our own 
times, and push on to the fulfilment of a destiny, which, if 
carried out on the apparent designs of the ruler of the earth, 
will leave that of all other States which have preceded us, 
as much in the shade, as the mountain leaves the valley. But, 
it must not be forgotten that the brightest dawns often usher 
in the darkest days ; that the most brilliant youths frequently 
precede manhoods of disappointment and baffled wishes; 
that even the professed man of God can fall away from his 
vows and his faith, and finish a career that was commenced 
in virtue and hope, in profligacy and sin. Nations are no 
more safe from the influence of temptation than individuals, 
and this has a weakness peculiarly its own. Instead of fall- 
ing back on its popular principle, in extremities, as its infal- 
lible safeguard, it is precisely in the irresponsible and grasp- 
ing character of that principle that its danger is to be appre- 
hended. That principle, which, kept within the limits of 
right, is so admirably adapted to restraining the ordinary 
workings of cupidity and selfishness, as they are familiarly 
seen in narrow governments, when permitted to overrun the 
boundaries placed for its control, becomes a torrent that has 
broken out of its icy bed, in the Spring, and completely de- 
faces all that is beneficial or lovely, in either nature or art, 
that may happen to lie in its course. As yet, the experi- 
ence of two centuries has offered nothing so menacing to 
the future prosperity of this country, as the social fermenta- 


THE REDSKINS. 


28 

tion which is at this moment at work, in the State of New 
York. On the result of this depends the solution of the all- 
important question, whether principles are to rule this repub« 
lie, or men ; and these last, too, viewed in their most vulgar 
and repulsive qualities, or as the mere creatures of self, in- 
tend of being the guardians and agents of that which ought 
to be. It is owing to this state of things, that we have al- 
ready seen a legislature occupied with discussing the modes 
of evading the provisions of its own laws, and men who 
ought to stand before the world, stern and uncompromising 
in their public morals, manifesting a most pernicious inge- 
nuity in endeavouring to master and overreach each other 
in w ielding the arts of the demagogue. 

As the Indians entered the north and south road, or that 
in which we had stopped, the whole party came to a halt, 
with characteristic courtesy, as if to meet our wish to speak 
to thepi. The foremost of the band, who was also the oldest, 
being a man of sixty, if not older, nodded his head, and ut- 
tered the usual conv'^entional salutation of “ Sago, sago.” 

“ Sago,” said my uncle, and “ Sago” put in I. 

“ How do?” continued the Indian, who we now discovered 
spoke English. “ What call this country ?” 

“ This is Ravensnest. The village of Little Nest is about 
a mile and a half on the other side of that wood.” 

The Indian now turned, and in his deep guttural tones 
communicated this intelligence to his fellows. The informa* 
tion obviously was well received, which was as much as 
saying that they had reached the end of their journey. Some 
conversation next succeeded, delivered in brief, sententious 
remarks, when the old chief again turned to us. I call him 
chief, though it was evident that the whole party was com- 
posed of chiefs. This was apparent by their medals, their 
fine appearance generally, and by their quiet, dignified, not 
to say lofty, bearing. Each of them was in a light summer 
attire, wearing the moccasin and leggings, &c. ; the calico 
shirt, or a thin blanket, that was cast around the upper part 
of the person, much as the Roman may be supposed to have 
worn his toga ; all carrying the rifle, the bright, well-scoured 
tomahawk, and the sheathed knife. Each, too, had his horn 
and his bullet-pouch, and some of the more youthful were a 
little elaborate in their ornaments, in the way of feathers,, 


THE REDSKINS. 29 

and such presents as they had received on their long jour- 
ney. Not one of them all, however, was painted. 

“ This Raven-nest, eh?” continued the old chief, speaking 
directly, but with sufficient courtesy. 

As I have said. The village lies on the other side of 
that wood ; the house from which the name is taken is a 
mile and a half in the other direction.” 

This, too, was translated, and a low, but general expres- 
sion of pleasure was given. 

“ Any Injins ’bout here, eh ?” demanded the chief, looking 
so earnestly at the same lime as to surprise us both. 

“ Yes,” answered my uncle. “ There are Injins — a party 
is in the edge of the wood, there, within thirty rods of you, 
at this moment.” 

With great rapidity this fact was communicated to the 
eager listeners, and there was a sensation in the party , 
though it was a sensation betrayed as such feelings are only 
betrayed among the aborigines of this part of the world; 
quietly, reservedly, and with a coldness amounting nearly 
-o indifference. We were amused, however, at noting how 
much more interest this news awakened than would proba- 
bly have been excited had these red-men been told a town 
like London was on the other side of the wood. As chil- 
dren are known to feel most interest in children, so did these 
children of the forest seem to be most alive to an interest in 
these unexpected neighbours, brethren of the same habits 
and race, as they unquestionably imagined. After some 
earnest discourse among themselves, the old chief, whose 
name turned out to be Prairiefire, once more addressed 
himself to us. 

“ What tribe, eh ? Know tribe ?” 

“ They are called Anti-rent Injins — a new tribe in this 
part of the country, and are not much esteemed.” 

“ Bad Injin, eh ?” 

■ “I am afraid so. They are not honest enough to go in 
paint, but wear shirts over their faces.” 

Another long and wondering conference succeeded. It 
is to be supposed that such a tribe as that of the Anti-renters 
was hitherto unknown among the American savages, 'ihe 
first intelligence of the existence of such a people w.^ulJ 
naturally awaken great interest, and we were soon requ bed 
3 * 


30 THEREDSKINS. 

to show them the way to the spot where this unheard of 
tribe might be found. This was going somewhat further 
than my uncle had anticipated, but he was not a man to beat 
a retreat when he had once undertaken an enterprise. After 
a short deliberation with himself, he signified his assent ; 
and alighting from our wagon, we fastened Tom Miller’s 
horse to a stake of one of the fences, and set off, on foot, as 
guides, to our new brethren, in seeking the great tribe of the 
Anti-renters ! We had not gone half the distance to the 
woods before we met Holmes and Tubbs, who, getting a 
cast in another wagon, until they reached the place where 
..heir own vehicle was stationed, had recovered that, and 
were now on their way home, apprehensive that some new 
freak of their great allies might throw them out into the 
highway again. This wagon, our own excepted, was the 
only one that had yet emerged from the wood, the owners 
of some twenty others preferring to remain in the back- 
ground until the development of the meeting between the 
tribes should occur. 

“What, in natur’, does all this mean?” exclaimed old 
Holmes, as we approached him, reining in his horse, for the 
purposes of a conference. “ Is the governor sending out 
ra-al Injins ag’in’ us, in order to favour the landlords ?” 

This was taking a harsh and most uncha<ritable view of 
the course of the governor, for an anti-renter ; but that func- 
tionary having made the capital blunder of serving, altoge- 
ther, neither “ God nor Mammon” in this great question, 
must expect to take it right and left, as neither God nor 
Mammon will be very likely to approve of his course. 

“Veil, I don’t know,” was my uncle’s answer. “ Dese 
ist ra-al red-men, und dem younder ist ra-al Injins, dat’s 
all. Vhat might bring dese warriors here, joost now, you 
must ask of demselves, if you wants to I’arn.” 

“ There can be no harm in asking ; I ’m no way skeary 
about redskins, having seen ’em often, and my father fit ’em 
in his day, as I ’ve heern him tell. Sago, Sago.” 

“ Sago,” angered Prairiefire, with his customary cour- 
tesy. 

“ Where, in natur’, do you red-men all come from, and 
where can ye be goin’ ?” 

It was apparent that Holrnes belonged to a school that 


THE REDSKINS. 31 

never hesitated about putting any question ; and that would 
have an answer, if an answer was to be got. The old chief 
had probably met with such pale-faces before, the untrained 
American being certainly among the most diligent of all tha 
human beings of that class. But, on the other hand, the 
red-man regards the indulgence of a too eager curiosity as 
womanish, and unworthy of the self-command and dignity 
of a warrior. The betraying of surprise, and the indulgence 
sf a curiosity fit only for squaws, were two things that Prai- , 
riefire had doubtless been early told were unworthy of his 
sex ; for to some such in-and-in breeding alone could be 
referred the explanation of the circumstance that neither 
Holmes’ manner, address, nor language, caused in him the 
least expression of emotion. He answered the questions, « 
however, and that with a coldness that seemed of proof. | 

“ Come from setting sun — been to see Great Father, at j 
Washington — go home,” was the sententious reply. 

“ But, how come ye to pass by Ravensnest 1 — I ’m afeared | 

the governor, and them chaps at Albany, must have a hand | 

in this, Shabbakuck?” 1 

What Shabbakuck thought of the “ governor, and them | 

chaps at Albany” is not known, as he did not see fit to 
make any reply. Flis ordinary propensity to meddle was 
probably awed by the appearance of these real Redskins. j 
“ I say, whi/ do ye come this-a-way V’ Holmes continued, j 
repeating his question. “If you’ve been to Washington, | 
and found him to hum (Anglice, ‘ at home’), why didn’t ye 
go back by the way ye come ?” 

“ Come here to find Injin ; got no Injin here, eh?” 

“ Injin? why, of one sort we’ve got more of the critturs 
than a body can very well git along with. Of what colour 
be the Injins you want to find ? — Be they of the pale-face 
natur’, or be they red like yourselves?” 

“ Want to find red-rnan. He ole, now ; like top of dead 
hemlock, wind blow t’rough his branches till leaf all fall 
off,” 

“ By George, Hugh,” whispered my uncle, “ these red- 
skins are in search of old Susquesus !” Then entirely for- 
getting the necessity of maintaining his broken English in 
the presence of his two Ravensnest listeners, Shabbakuck 
Tubbs, in particular, he turned, somewhat inconsiderately 


I 


32 THE REDSKINS. | 

I for one of his years, to the Prairiefire, and hastily re. I 
j marked — i 

j “ 1 can help you in your search. You are looking for a i 
I warrior of the Onondagoes ; one who left his tribe a hun* I 

I dred summers ago, a red-man of great renown for finding ; 

his path in the forest, and who would never taste fire-water, i 

Plis name is Susquesus.” i 

Until this moment, the only white man who was in com- I 
pany with this strange party — strange at least in our por- I 
tion of the State of New York, though common enough, j 
perhaps, on the great thoroughfares of the country — broke | 
silence. This man was an ordinary interpreter, who had ^ 

been sent with the party in case of necessity ; but being lit- i 

i tie more acquainted with the ways of civilization than those j 
j whom he was to guide, he had prudently held his tongue 
■ until he saw that he might be of some use. We afterwards 
; learned that the sub-agent who had accompanied the chiefs 

I to Washington, had profited by the wish of the Indians to 
pay their passing homage to the “ Withered Hemlock, that 
still stands,” as they poetically called Susquesus in their 
‘Own dialects — for Indians of several tribes were present — to 
I pay a visit to his own relatives in Massachusetts, his pre- 
j sence not being deemed necessary in such a purely pious , 

I pilgrimage. ' 

“ You ’re right,” observed the interpreter. ‘‘ These chiefs 
have not come to look up any tribe, but there are two of 
the ancient Onondagoes among them, and their traditions 
tell of a chief, called Susquesus, that has outlived every- 
thing but tradition ; who left his own people long, long ago, 
and who left a great name behind him for vartue, and that I 
is a thing a red-skin never forgets.” 

“ And all these \Varriors have come fifty miles out of their 
way, to pay this homage to Susquesus ?” 

“ Such has been their wish, and I asked permission of the 
Bureau at Washington, to permit them to come. It costs 
Uncle Sam 850 or a 8100 more than it otherwise might, 
but such a visit will do all the warriors of the West a mil- 
lion of dollars of good ; no men honour right and justice | 
more than redskins, though it’s in their own fashion.” 

“lam sure Uncle Sam has acted no more than rio-ht- 
eously, as I hope he always may act as respects these peo- 


THEREDSKINS. 33 

pie. Susquesus is an old friend of mine, and I will lead 
you to him.” 

“ And who in natur’ be youV' demanded Holmes, his cu- 
riosity starting off on a new track. 

“Who am 17 — You shall know who I am,” answered 
uncle Ro, removing his wig, an action that I imitated on 
the spot, — “I am Roger Littiepage, the late trustee of this 
estate, and this is Hugh Littiepage, its owner.” Old 
Holmes was good pluck in most matters ; of far better stuff 
at the bottom, than the sneaking, snivelling, prating dema- 
gogue at his side; but by this discovery he was dumb- 
founded ! He looked at my uncle, then he looked at me ; 
after which, he fastened a distressed and inquiring gaze on 
Shabbakuck. As for the Indians, notwithstanding their ha- 
bitual self-command, a common “ hugh !” was uttered among 
them, when they saw two men, as it might be, thus scalping 
themselves. Uncle Ro was excited, and his manner was, 
in the least degree, theatrical, as with one hand he removed 
his cap, and with the other his wig ; holding the last, with 
an extended arm, in the direction of the Indians. As a red- 
man is rarely guilty of any act of rudeness, unless he mean 
to play the brute in good earnest, it is possible that the 
Chippewa towards whom the hand which held the wig was 
extended, mistook the attitude for an invitation to examine 
that curious article, for himself. It is certain he gently 
forced it from my uncle’s grasp, and, in the twinkling of an 
eye, all the savages were gathered round it, uttering many, 
but low and guarded expressions of surprise. Those men 
were all chiefs, and they restrained their astonishment at 
this point. Had there been any of the ignoble vulgar among 
them, there is little doubt that the wig would have passed 
from hand to hand, and been fitted to a dozen heads, already 
shaved to receive it. 



34 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER III. 


The Gordon is gude in a hurry, 

An’ Campbell is steel to the bane , 

An’ Grant, an’ Mackenzie, an’ Murray, 

An’ Cameron will truckle to nane.” 

Hogs. 

The interruption of this scene came from old Holmes, who 
cried to his companion, on the high key in which it was 
usual for him to speak : — 

“This is downright bad, Shabbakuk — we’ll never get 
our leases a’ter this !” 

“ Nobody can say” — answered Tubbs, giving a loud hem, 
as if determined to brazen the matter out. “ Maybe the 
gentleman will be glad to compromise the matter. It’s 
ag’in law, I believe, for any one to appear on the highway 
disguised — and both the ’Squire Littlepages, you’ll notice, 
neighbour Holmes, be in the very middle of the road, and 
both was disguised, only a minute ago.” 

“ That’s true. — D’ye think anything can be got out o’ 
that? I want profitable proceedin’s.” 

Shabbakuk gave another hem, looked behind him, as if 
to ascertain what had become of the Injins, for he clearly 
did not fancy the real ‘ article’ before him, and then he an- 
swered : 

“ We may get our farms, neighbour Holmes, if you’ll 
agree, as I’m w'illin’ to do, to be reasonable about this mat- 
ter, so long as ’Squire Littlepage wishes to hearken to his 
own interests.” 

My uncle did not deign to make any answer, but, know, 
ing we had done nothing to bring us within the view of the 
late statute, he turned towards the Indians, renewing his 
offer to them to be their guide. 

“The chiefs want very much to know who you are, ana 
how you two came by double scalps,” said the interpreter, 
smiling like one who understood for his own part, the nature 
of a wig very well. 


THE REDSKINS. 


35 

i Tell them that this young gentleman is Hugh Little- 

j page, and that I am his uncle. Hugh Littlepage is the 
: owner of the land that you see on every side of you.” 

The answer was communica-ted, and we waited for its i 
effect on the Indians. To our surprise, several of them soon i 

I gathered around, evidently regarding us both, with interest j 

I and respect. 

“ The claims of a landlord seem to be better understood 
among these untutored savages, than among your own 
tenants, Hugh,” said my uncle. “But there goes old 
Holmes, the inbred rogue, and his friend Shabbakuk, back 
to the woods ; we may have an affair on hand with his 
Injins.” 

I “ I think not, sir. It does not appear to me that there is 

I valour enough in that tribe, to face this. In general, the 

white man is fully a match for the redskin ; but it may be 
doubted whether chiefs like these, would not prove too much 
for twice their number of varlets, of the breed of yonder | 
skulking scoundrels.” | 

! “ Why do the chiefs manifest so much interest in us ?” | 

asked my uncle, of the interpreter. “ Is it possible that they 
pay so much respect to us, on account of our connection 
with this estate ?” 

“ Not at all — not at all. They know the difference be- j 

tween a chief and a common man well enough, it is true,” j 

was the answer ; “ and twenty times, as we have come j 
down through the country, have they expressed their sur- j 
pri-se to me, that so many common men should be chiefs, i 
among the pale-faces; but, they care nothing for riches, i 
i He is the greatest man among them, who is best on a war j 
path, and at a council-fire ; though they do honour them | 
that has had great and useful ancestors.” ^ j 

“ But, they seem to betray some unusual and extraordi- s 
nary interest in us, too; perhaps they are surprised at see- 
ing gentlemen in such dresses'!” 

“ Lord, sir, what do men care for dresses, that are used 
to see the heads of factories and forts, half the time dressed 
I in skins. They know that there be holidays and workin’- 
! days ; times for every-day wear, and times for feathers and 
I paint. No — no — they look at you both, with so much in 
I lerest, on account of their traditions.” 

I 


36 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ Their traditions ! What can these have to do with us 1 | 

We have never had anything to dp with Indians.” | 

‘ That’s true of you, and may be true of your fathers ; 
but it’s not true of some of your ancestors. Yesterday, after 
we had got to our night’s stopping-place, two of the chiefs, 
this smallish man with the double plate on his breast, and 
that elderly warrior, who has been once scalped, as you can 
see by his crown, began to tell of some of the treacheries of 
their own tribe, which was once a Canada people. The 
elderly chief related the adventures of a war-path, that led 
out of Canada, across the large waters, down to a settle- 
i ment where they expected to get a great many scalps, but 
! where in the end they lost more scalps than they found ; 

I and where they met Susquesus, the upright Onondago, as 

i they call him in that tongue, as well as the Yengeese owner 

of the land, at this very spot, whom they called by a name | 
I something like your own, who was a warrior of great cour- | 
I age and skill by their traditions. They suppose you to be j 

j the descendants of the last, and honour you accordingly ; i 

! that’s all.” 

i “ And, is it possible that these untutored beings have tra- 
j ditions as reliable as this ?” 

j “ Lord, if you could hear what they say among them- 
i selves, about the lies that are read to them out of the pale- 
j face prints, you would I’arn how much store they set by 
truth ! In my day, I have travelled through a hundred 
I miles of wilderness, by a path that was no better, nor any 
i worse, than an Indian tradition of its manner of running; 

and a tradition that must have beeuj at least, a hundred 

summers old. They know all about your forefathers, and i 
they know something about you, too, if you be the gentleman ! 
that finds the upright Onondago, or the Withered Hemlock, 
in his old age, with a wigwam, and keeps it filled with food 
and fuel.” 

“ Is this possible ! And all this is spoken of, and known 
among the savages of the Far West?” 

“If you call these chiefs, savages,” returned the interpre- 
ter, a little oflbnded at hearing such a term applied to his 
best friends and constant associates. “To be sure they 
have their ways, and so have the pale-faces ; but Injin wavs 
be not so very savage, when a body gets a little used "^to I 


I 


T H E R E D S K I N S . 37 

them. Now, I remember it was a long time before 1 could 
get reconciled to seeing a warrior scalp his enemy ; but as J 
reasoned on it, and entered into the spirit of the practice, 1 
began to feel it was all right.” 

1 was walking just in front of my uncle, for we were in 
motion again on our way to the wood, but could not help 
i turning and saying to him with a smile — 

“So it would seem that this matter of the ‘spirit’ is to 
be found in other places besides the legislature. There is 
the ‘ spirit of scalping,’ as well as the ‘ spirit of the institu 
tions !’ ” 

“ Ay, Hugh, and the ‘ spirit of fleecing,’ as a consequence 
of what is profanely termed the last. But, it may be well 
to go no nearer to the wood, than this spot. The Injins 1 
have told you of are in these bushes in front, and they are 
armed — I leave you to communicate with them in any man- 
ner you please. They are about twenty in number.” 

The interpreter informed his chiefs of what had been said, 
who spoke together in earnest consultation for a moment. 
Then Prairiefire, himself, plucked a branch off the nearest 
bush, and holding it up he advanced close to the cover, and 
called out aloud, in some one, or in many of the different 
dialects with which he was acquainted. I saw by the 
moving of their branches, that men were in the bushes; but 
no answer of any sort was made. There was one savage 
in our band, who betrayed manifest impatience at these 
proceedings. He was a large, athletic Iowa chief, called in 
English Flinty heart, and, as we subsequently learned, of great 
renown for martial exploits. It was always difficult to hold 
him in, when there was a prospect of scalps, and he was 
now less restrained than common, from the circumstance of 
his having no superior of his own particular tribe present. 
After Prairiefire had called two or three times in vain to the 
party in the cover, Flintyhead stepped out, spoke a few 
words, with energy and spirit, terminating his appeal by a 
most effective, not. to say appalling, whoop. That sound 
was echoed back by most of the band, when they all broke 
off, right and left, stealing more like snakes than bipeds to 
the fences, under cover of which they glanced forward to 
the wood, in which every man of them buried himself, in the 
twinkling of an eye In vain had the interpreter called to 
VoLf il. — 4 


THE REDSKINS. 


38 

them, to remind them where they were, and to tell them 
that they might displease their Great Father, at Washington ; 
and Prairiefire stood his ground, exposed to any shot the 
supposed foe might send at him ; on they went, like so many 
hounds that have struck a scent too strong to be held in re- 
straint by any whipper-in. 

“ They expect to find Injins,” said the interpreter, in a 
sort of despair, “ and there’s no holdin’ ’em back. There 
can be no enemies of their’n down here- a- way, and the agent 
will be awfully angry if blood is drawn; though I shouldn’t 
mind it a bit if the party was some of them scoundrels, the 
Sauks and Foxes, whom it’s often a marcy to kill. It’s 
different down here, however, and I must say I wish this 
nadn’t happened.” 

My uncle and myself just waited long -enough to hear 
this, when we rushed forward, along the highway, and en- 
tered the wood, joined by Prairiefire, who, fancying by our 
movement that all was right, now raised such a whoop him- 
self as to demonstrate it was not for want of ‘ knowing how’ 
that he had hitherto been silent. The road made a curve 
at the very point where it penetrated the forest, and being 
fringed with the bushes already mentioned, the two circum- 
stances shut out the view of what was passing behind the 
scenes, until we reached the turn, where a common halt of 
the wagons had been made, when the whole view burst 
upon us at once in all its magnificence. 

A rout of a ‘ grand army’ could scarcely have been more 
picturesque ! The road was lined with vehicles, in full 
retreat, to use a ndliiary term, or, to speak in the more 
common parlance, scampering off. Every whip was in 
active use, every horse was on the run, whilst half the 
faces were turned behind their owners, the women sending 
back screams to the whoops of the savages. As for the 
Injins, they had instinctively abandoned the woods, and 
poured down into the highway, speed like theirs demanding 
open ground for its finest display. Some had leaped into 
wagons, piling themselves up among those virtuous wives 
and daughters of that portion of the honest yeomanry who 
had collected to devise the means of cheating me out of my 
property. But, why dwell on this scene, since the exploits 
of these Injins, for the last six years, have amply proved 


THE REDSKINS. 


39 

that the only thing in which they excel, is in running away. 
They are heroes when a dozen can get round a single man 
to tar and feather him ; valiant as a hundred against five or 
six, and occasionally murderers, when each victim can be 
destroyed by five or six bullets, to make sure of him. The 
very cowardice of the scoundrels should render them loath- 
some to the whole community ; the dog that has spirit only 
to hunt in packs being cur at the bottom. 

I must add one other object to the view, however. Holmes 
and Shabbakuk brought up the rear, and both were flogging 
,heir devoted beast as if his employers — I dare not call them 
masters,’ as I might be accused of aristocracy for using so 
offensfve a term in this age of common-sense liberty, while 
‘ employers’ is a very significant expression for the particu- 
lar occasion — as if his ‘ employers,’ then, had left some- 
thing behind them, at ‘Little Neest,’ and were hurrying 
back to obtain it before it fell into other hands. Old Holmes 
kept looking behind, as if chased by the covenants of forty 
leases, while the “ Spirit of the Institutions,” headed by two 
governors, and “ the honourable gentleman from Albany,” 
was in full pursuit. If the “Spirit of the Institutions” was 
really there, it was quite alone ; for I looked in vain for the 
exhibition of any other spirit. In much less time than it has 
taken me to write this account, the road was cleared, leaving 
my uncle, myself, and Prairiefire, in quiet possession ; the 
latter uttering a very significant “ hugh !” as the last wagon 
went out of sight in a cloud of dust. 

It was but a moment, however, before our own tribe, oi 
tribes would be more accurate, came down upon us, collect- 
ing in the road at the very spot where we stood. The vic- 
tory had been bloodless, but it was complete. Not only had 
the savage Indians completely routed the virtuous and much- 
oppressed-by-aristocracy Injins, but they had captured two 
specimens of virtue and depression in the persons of as 
many of the band. So very significant and expressive was 
the manner of the captives, that Flintyheart, into whose 
hands they had fallen, not only seemed to hold their scalps 
in contempt, but actually had disdained to disarm them. 
There they stood, bundles of calico, resembling children in 
swaddling-clothes, with nothing partaking of that natural 
freedom of which tkeir party love to boast, but their legs, 


THE REDSKINS. 


40 

which were left ai perfect liberty, by way of a dernier re- 
sort, My uncle now assumed a little authority, and com- 
manded these fellows to take off their disguises. He might 
as well have ordered one of the oaks, or maples, to lay down 
its leaves before the season came round ; for neither would 
obey. 

The interpreter, however, whose name was Manytongues, 
rendered into English from the Indian dialects, was a man 
of surprisingly few words, considering his calling, on an 
occasion like this. Walking up to one of the prisoners, he 
first disarmed him, and then removed his calico hood, ex- 
posing the discomfited countenance of Brigham, Tom Mil- 
ler’s envious labourer. The “ hughs !” that escaped the 
Indians were very expressive, on finding that not only did 
a pale-face countenance appear from beneath the covering, 
but one that might be said to be somewhat paler than com- 
mon. Manytongues had a good deal of frontier waggery 
about him, and, by this time he began to comprehend how 
the land lay. Passing his hand over Josh’s head, he coolly 
remarked — 

“ That scalp would be thought more of, in Iowa, than it ’s 
ra-ally worth, I ’m thinking, if truth was said. But let us 
see who we have here.” 

Suiting the action to the words, as it is termed, the inter- 
preter laid hold of the hood of the other captive, but did not 
succeed in removing it without a sharp struggle. He effected 
his purpose, assisted by two of the younger chiefs, who 
stepped forward to aid him. I anticipated the result, for I 
had early recognised the goar; but great was the surprise 
of my uncle when he saw Seneca Newcome’s well-known 
face developed by the change ! 

Seneca — or, it might be better now to use his own favour- 
ite orthoepy, and call him Sene%, at once, for he had a 
particularly sneaking look as he emerged from under the 
calico, and this would be suiting the sound to appearances^ 
Seneky, then, was in a “ mingled tumult,” as it is called, 
of rage and shame. The first predominated, however, and, 
as is only too common in cases of military disasters, instead 
of attributing his capture to circumstances, the prowess of 
his enemies, or any fault of his own, he sought to mitigate his 
own disgrace by heaping disgrace on his comrade. Indeed, 


the redskins. 


41 

he manner in which these men went at each other, as 
soon as unsacked, reminded me of two game cocks that are 
let out ol their bags within three feet of each other, with this 
i exception — neither crowed. 

“ This is all your fault, you cowardly dog,” said Seneky, 
almost fiercely, for shame had filled his "face with blood. 
“ Flad you kept on your feet, and not run me down, in your 
haste to get off, I might have retreated, and got clear with 
the rest of them.” 

This assault was too much for Joshua, who gained spirit 
to answer by its rudeness and violence, not to say injus- 
tice ; for, as we afterwards ascertained, Newcome had actu- 
ally fallen in his eagerness to retreat; and Brigham, so far 
from being the cause of his coming down, had only pre- 
vented his getting up, by falling on top of him. In this 
prostrate condition they had further fallen into the hands of 
theii; enemies. 

i “ 1 want nothin’ from you, ’Squire Newcome,” answered 
I Joshua, quite decidedly as to tone and manner; “ r/owr cha 
racter is well known, all up and down the country.” 

“ What of my character? — What have you got to say 
! ag’in’ me or thy character?” demanded the attorney at law, 

1 in a tone of high defiance. “ I want to see the man who 

I can say anything ag’in’ my character.” 

I This was pretty well, considering that the fellow had act- 
I ually been detected in the commission of a felony; though- 
i I suppose ’that difficulty would have been gotten over, in a 
I moral sense, by the claim of being taken while struggling 
I in defence of human rights, and the “ spirit of the instiiu- 
I tions.” The defiance was too much for Brigham’s patience, 
and being fully assured, by this time, that he was not in 
much danger of'being scalped, he turned upon Seneca, and 
cried, with something more than spirit, with downright ran- 
cour — 

“ You’re a pretty fri’nd of the poor man, and of the 
))eople, if truth must be said, an’t you? Everybody in the 
county that’s in want of money knows what you be, you 
d d shaver.” 

As the last words came out, Seneky’s fist went in upon 
Brigham’s nose, causing the blood to flow freely. My uncte 

4 ^ 


THE REDSKINS. 


42 

Ro now thought it time to interfere, and he rebuked the 
irritated lawyer with dignity. 

“ Why did he call me a d d shaver, then ?” retorted 

Seneky, still angry and red. “I’ll stand that from no 
man.” 

“ Why, what harm can there be in such a charge, Mr. 
Newcome ? You are a member of the bar, and ought to 
understand the laws of your country, and cannot stand in 
need of being told that it has been decided by the highest 
tribunal of your State that it is no reproach to be called a 
shaver ! Some of the honourable members of that learned 
body, indeed, seem to think, on the contrary, that it is matter 
of commendation and congratulation. I am ashamed of 
you, Mr. Newcome — I’m quite ashamed of you.” 

Seneky muttered something, in which I fancied I under 

stood the words “ the Court of Errors be d d,” or “ the 

Court of Errors” might go to some very bad place, which 
I will not name ; but I will not take on myself that any 
man of decency could really use such irreverent language 
about a body so tru-'y eminent, though a person in a passion 
is sometimes disposed to forget propriety. My uncle now 
thought it time to put an end to this scene; and, without 
deigning to enter into any explanations, he signified to Many- 
tongues his readiness to lead his chiefs to the point where 
they desired to go. 

“ As to these two Injins,” he added, “ their capture will 
do us no honour ; and now we know w'ho they are, they can 
be taken at any time by the deputy sheriffs or constables. 
It is hardly worth while to encumber your march with such 
fellows.” 

The chiefs assented to this proposal, too, and we quitted 
tha woods in a body, leaving Seneky and Joshua on the 
giound. As we subsequently learned, our backs w'ere no 
sconer turned, than the last pitched into the first, and 
p(»unded him not only until he owned he was “ a shaver,” 

but that he was “ a d d shaver” in the bargain. Such 

was the man, and such the class, that the deluded anti- 
renters of New York wish to substitute, in a social sense, 
for the ancient landlords of the country ! A pretty top- 
$heaf they would make to the stack of the community, and 


THE REDSKINS. 


43 


Admirably would the grain be kept that was protected by 
their covering ! One would like to see fellows of this morai 
calibre interpreting their covenants ; and it would be a use- 
ful, though a painful lesson, to see the change effected for a 
twelvemonth, in order to ascertain, after things had got back . 
into the old natural channel, how many would then wish to 
“ return, like the dog to his vomit, or the sow to her wal- 
lowing in the mire.” 

After giving some directions to Manytongues, my uncle 
and 1 got into our wagon and drove up the road, leaving the 
Indians to follow. The rendezvous was at the Nest, whither 
we had now determined to proceed at once, and assume our 
proper characters. In passing the rectory we found time 
to stop and run in, to inquire after the welfare of Mr. and 
Miss Warren. Great was my joy at learning they had 
gone on to the Nest, where they were all to dine. This 
intelligence did not tend to lessen the speed of Miller’s horse, 
or my horse it would be better to say, for I am the real 
owner of everything on the Nest Farm, and shall probably 
so remain, unless the “ spirit of the Institutions” gets at my 
property there, as well as in other places. In the course 
of half an hour we drove on the lawn, and stopped at the 
door. It will be recollected that the Indians had our wigs, 
which had been left by my uncle and myself in their hands, 
as things of no further use to us. Notwithstanding our 
dresses, the instant we presented ourselves without these 
instruments of disguise we were recognized, and the cry 
went through the house and grounds that “ Mr. Hugh had 
come home !” I confess I was touched with some signs of 
interest and feeling that escaped the domestics, as well as 
those who belonged out of doors, when they saw me again 
standing before them in health, if not in good looks. My 
uncle, too, was welcome ; and there were a few minutes 
during which I forgot all my grounds for vexation, and 
was truly happy. 

Although my grandmother, and sister, and Mary War- 
len, all knew what the cry of “ Mr. Hugh has got home” 
meant, it brought everybody out upon the piazza. Mr. 
Warren had related the events of the day, as fbr as he was 
acquainted with them ; but even those who were in the se- 
cret, were surprised at our thus returning unwigged, and in ' 


THE REDSKINS. 


44 

our proper characters. As for myself, I could not but note 
the manner in which the four girls came out to meet me. 
Martha flew into my embrace, cast her arms around my 
neck, kissing me six or eight times without stopping. Then 
Miss Colebrooke came next, with Ann Marston leaning on 
her arm, both smiling, though greatly surprised, and both 
bright, and pretty, and lady-like. They were glad to see 
me, and met my salutations frankly and like old friends ; 
though I could see they did not fancy my dress in the least. 
Mary VVarren was behind them all, smiling, blushing, and 
shy ; but it did not require two looks from me to make cer- 
tain that her welcome was as sincere as that of my older 
friends. Mr. Warren was glad to have it in his power to 
greet us openly, and to form an acquaintance with those, to 
whose return he had now been looking with anxiety and 
hope, for three or four years. 

A few minutes sufficed for the necessary explanations, a 
part of which, indeed, had already been made by those who 
were previously in the secret; when my dear grandmother 
and Patt insisted on our going up to our old room, and of 
dressing ourselves in attire more suitable to our stations. 
A plenty of summer clothes had been left behind us, and 
our wardrobes had been examined that morning in anticipa- 
tion of our soon having need of them ; so that no great time 
was necessary to make the change. I was a little fuller 
than when I left home, but the clothes being loose, there 
was no difficulty in equipping myself. I found a handsome 
blue dress coat, that did very well, and vests and pantaloons, 
ad lihitvm. Clothing is so much cheaper in Europe than 
at home, that Americans who are well supplied, do not often 
carry much with them when they go abroad ; and this had 
been a rule with my uncle all his life. Each of us, more- 
over, habitually kept a supply of country attire at the Nest, 
which we did not think of removing. In consequence of 
these little domestic circumstances, as has been said, there 
was no want of the means of putting my uncle and myself 
on a level with others of our class, as respects outward ap- 
pearance, in that retired part of the country, at least. 

The apartments of my uncle and myself were quite near 
each other, in the north wing of the house ; as that which 
looked in the direction of a part of the meadows under the 


THEREDSKINS. 4b 

cliff, the wooded ravine, and the wigwam, or cabin, (if the 
“ Upright Onondago.” The last was very plainly in view, 
from the window of my dressing-room ; and I was standing 
at the latter, contemplating the figures of the two old fellows, 
as they sat basking in the sun, as was their practice of an 
afternoon, when a tap at the door proved to be the announce- 
ment of the entrance of John. 

“Well, John, my good fellow,” I said, laughingly; “I 
find a wig makes a great difference with your means of re- 
cognizing an old friend. I must thank you, nevertheless, 
for the good treatment you gave me in my character of a 
music-grinder.” 

“ I am sure, Mr. Hugh, you are heartily welcome to my 
services, come as you may to ask them. It was a most 
surprisingest deception, sir, as I shall ever hadmit ; but I 
thought the whole time you wasn’t exactly what you seemed 
to be, as I told Kitty as soon as I went down stairs : ‘ Kitty,’ 
says I, ‘ them two pedlars is just the two genteelest pedlars 
as hever I see in this country, and I shouldn’t wonder if 
they had known better days.’ But, now you have been to 
see the hanti-renters with your own eyes, Mr. Hugh, what 
do you think of them, if I may be so bold as to ask the 
question ?” 

“ Very much as I thought, before I had been to see them. 
They are a set of fellows who are canting about liberty, at 
the very moment when they are doing all they can to dis- 
credit its laws, and who mistake selfishness for patriotism ; 
just as their backers in the State government are doing, by 
using the same cant, when their object is nothing but votes. 
If no tenant had a vote, this question would never have 
been raised, or dreamt of — but I see those two old fellows, 
Jaaf and Sus, seem to enjoy themselves still.” 

“ Indeed they do, sir, in the most surprisingest manner! 
They was both antiquities, as we says in Hengland, when 
T came to this country, sir — and that was before you was 
born, Mr. Hugh — an age agone. But there they sits, sir, 
day in and day out, looking like monumentals of past 
times. The nigger” — John had been long enough in the 
country to catch the vernacular— “ The nigger grows uglier 
and uglier every year, and that is most of a change I can 
Bee in him; while I do think, sir, that the Indian grows 


THE REDSKINS. 


46 

’andsomer and ’andsomer. He ’s the ’andsomest old gen- 
tleman, sir, as I knows of, far and near !” 

“ Old gentleman /” What an expressive term that was, 
in this case! No human being would ever think of calling 
Jaaf an “ old gentleman,” even in these “ aristocratic” days, 
when “ gentlemen” are plentier than blackberries ; while 
any one might feel disposed thus to describe Susquesus. 
The Onondago was a gentleman, in the best meaning of the 
word ; though he may, and certainly did, want a great 
deal in the way of mere conventional usages. As for John, 
he never would have used the word to me, except in a case 
in which he felt the party had a claim to the appellation. 

“ Susquesus is a magnificent sight, with his grey or 
white head, fiery eyes, composed features, and impressive 
air,” I answered ; “ and Jaaf is no beauty. How do the 
old men get on together ?” 

“ Why, sir, they quarrel a good deal — that is, the nigger 
quarrels ,* though the Indian is too much above him to mind 
what he says. Nor will I say that Yop actually quarrels, 
sir, for he has the greatest possible regard for his friend ; 
but he aggravates in the most surprisingest manner — just 
like a nigger, howsever, I do suppose.” 

“They have wanted for nothing, I trust, during my ab- 
sence. Their table and other comforts have been seen to 
carefully, I hope?” 

“ No fear of that, sir, so long as Mrs. Littlepage lives ! 
She has the affection of a child for the old men, and has 
everything provided for them that they can possibly want. 
Betty Smith, sir — you remember Betty, the widow of the old 
coachman, that died when you was at college, sir — well, 
Betty has done nothing, these four years, but look after 
them two old men. She keeps everything tidy in their | 
hut, and washes it out twice a week, -and washes their I 
clothes for them, and darns, and sews, and cooks, and 
looks after all their comforts. She lives hard by, in the 
other cottage, sir, and has everything handy.” 

“ I am glad of that. Does either of the old men ever 
stray over as far as the Nest House now, John ?” Before | 
I went abroad, we had a visit from each, daily.” | 

“That custom has fallen away a little, sir; though the | 
nigger comes much the oftenest. He is sure to be here i 


THE REDSKINS. 


47 

once or twice a week, in good weather. Then he walks 
into the kitchen, where he will sit sometimes for a whole 
morning, telling the hardest stories, sir — ha, ha, ha ! — yes, 
sir, just the hardest stories one ever heard !” 

“ Why what can he have to say of that nature, that it 
seems to amuse you so 

“ According to his notion, sir, everything, in the country 
is falling away, and is inferior like to what it may have 
been in his young days. The turkeys arn’t so large, sir ; 
and the fowls is poorer, sir ; and the mutton isn’t so fat, 
sir ; and sich sort of enormities.” 

Here John laughed very heartily, though it was plain 
enough he did not much fancy the comparisons. 

“ And Susquesus,” I said, “ he does not share in hia 
friend’s criticisms 1” 

“ Sus never enters the kitchen, sir, at all. He knows that 
all the quality and upper class come to the great door of the 
house, and is too much of a gentleman to come in at any 
other entrance. No, sir, I never saw Sus in the kitchen or 
hoflices, at all ; nor does Mrs. Littlepage ’ave his table set 
anywhere but in the hupper rooms, or on the piazza, when 
she wishes to treat him to anything nice. The old gentle- 
man has what he calls his traditions, sir, and can tell a great 
many stories of old times ; but they ar’n’t about turkeys, and 
’orses, and garden-stuff, and such things as Yop dwells on 
so much, and so uncomfortably.” 

I now dismissed John, after again thanking him for his 
civilities to one of my late appearance, and joined my uncle. 
When we entered the little drawing-room, where the whole 
party was waiting to meet us, previously to going to the 
table, a common exclamation of pleasure escaped them all. 
Martha again kissed me, declaring I was now Hugh ; that 
I looked as she had expected to see Hugh ; that she would 
now know me for Hugh, and many other similar things ; 
while my dear grandmother stood and parted my hair, and 
gazed into my face with tears in her eyes, for I reminded 
her of her first-born, who had died so young ! As for the 
other ladies, the two heiress-wards of Uncle Ro seemed 
smiling and friendly, and willing to renew our ancient ami- 
cable relations; but Mary Warren still kept herself in the 


THE REDSKINS. 


4S 

back-ground, though I thought by her modest and half- 
averted eye, and flushed cheeks, that she sympathized as 
deeply in her friend Patt’s present happiness as any of the 
others ; possibly more deeply. 

Before we went to the table I sent a servant to the top of 
the house, with orders to look down the road, in order to 
ascertain when my red friends might be expected. This 
man reported that they were advancing along the highway, 
and would probably reach the door in the course of half an 
hour. They had stopped ; and he thought that he could 
perceive, by means of his glass, that they were painting their 
faces, and otherwise arranging their toilets, in preparation 
for the anticipated interview. On receiving this information 
I we took our seats at table, expecting to be ready to receive 
I the chiefs, as soon as they should arrive, 
i Ours was a happy dinner. For the moment, the condi- 
I lion of the country and the schemes of my tenants were for- 

i gotten, and we chatted of those nearer interests and feelings 

I that naturally presented themselves to our minds at such a 
j time. At length dear grandmother pleasantly rem.arked — 
j “ You must have an instinct for the discovery of discre- 
I tion, Hugh, for no one could have made a better choice of 

j a confidant than you did, while going to the village, this 

i morning.” 

j Mary blushed like an Italian sky at eventide, and looked 
j down, to conceal her confusion. 

I “ I do not know whether it was discretion or vanity, 

I grandmother,” was my answer, “ for I am conscious of 
I feeling an unconquerable reluctance to passing for a com 
j mon music-grinder in Miss Warren’s eyes.” 

I “ Nay, Hugh,” put in the saucy Patt, » I had told you 
I before that you passed for a very wwcommon music-frrinder 

I in her eyes. As for the grinding, she said but little"; for it 

I was of the flute, and of the manner in which it was played, 

j that Miss Warren spoke the most eloquently.” 

; The “Martha!” of Mary Warren, lowly, but half-re- 
I proachfully uttered, showed that the charming girl was be- 
j ginning to be really distressed, and my observant parent 
I changed the discourse by a gentle and adroit ^expedient 
I such as a woman alone knows thoroughly how to put in 


THE REDSKINS. 


49 

practice. It was simply handing Mr. Warren a plate of 
greengages ; but the act was so performed as to change the 
discourse. 

During the whole of that meal I felt certain there was a 
secret, mysterious communication between me and Mary 
Warren, which, while it probably did escape the notice of 
others, was perfectly evident to ourselves. This fact I felt 
to be true; while there was a consciousness betrayed in 
Mary’s blushes, and even in her averted eyes, that I found 
extremely eloquent on the same subject. 


CHAPTER IV. 

« With look, like patient Job’s, eschewing evil ; 

With motions graceful as a bird’s in air ; 

Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil 
That e’er clinched fingers in a captive’s hair.” 

Red Jacket. ■ 

Although an immense progress has been made in libe- 
rating this country from the domination of England, in the 
way of opinion and usages, a good deal remains to be done 
yet. Still, he who can look back forty years, must see the 
great changes that have occurred in very many things; and 
it is to be hoped that he who lives forty years hence, will 
find very few remaining that have no better reasons for their 
existence among ourselves than the example of a people so 
remote, with a different climate, different social organization, 
and different wants. I am for no more* condemning a usage, 
however, simply because it is English, than I am for ap- 
proving it, simply because it is English. I wish everything 
to stand on its own merits, and feel certain that no nation 
ever can become great, in the higher signification of the 
term, until^ it ceases to imitate, because it is imitation of a 
certain fixed model. One of the very greatest evils of this 
imitative spirit is even now developing itself in what is called 
the “ progress” of the country, which is assailing principles 
VoL. II. — 5 


50 theredskins. 

that are as old as the existence of man, and whic, may 
almost be said to be eternal as social truths, at the very . 
moment that notions derived from our ancestors are sub- 
mitted to in the highest places, the Senate of the United 
States for example, that are founded in facts which not only 
have no existence among ourselves, but which are pbsitively 
antagonist to such as have. So much easier is it to join in 
the hurrah ! of a “ progress,’’ than to ascertain whether it 
is making in the right direction, or whether it be progress 
at all. But, to return from things of moment to those of 
less concern. 

Among other customs to be' condemned that we have 
derived from England, is the practice of the men sitting at 
table after the women have left it. Much as I may wish to 
see this every-way offensive custom done away with, and the 
more polished and humanizing usage of all the rest of 
Christendom adopted in its stead, I should feel ashamed at 
finding, as I make no doubt I should find it, that our custom 
would be abandoned within a twelvemonth after it might be 
understood it was abandoned in England. My uncle had 
long endeavoured to introduce into our own immediate circle 
the practice of retaining the ladies at table for a reasonable 
time, and of then quitting it with them at the expiration of 
that time ; but it is hard to ‘ kick against the pricks.’ Men 
who fancy it ‘ society’ to meet at each other’s houses to 
drink wine, and taste wine, and talk about wine, and to 
outdo each other in giving their guests the most costly 
wines, are not to be diverted easily from their objects. The 
hard-drinking days are past, but the hard ‘ talking days’ are 
in their vigour. If it could be understood, generally, that 
even in England it is deemed vulgar to descant on the 
liquor that is put upon the table, perhaps we might get rid 
of the practice too. Vulgar in England! it is even 
deemed vulgar here, by the right sort, as I am ready to 
maintain, and indeed know of my own observation. That 
one or two friends who are participating in the benefits of 
some particularly benevolent bottle, should say a word in 
commendation of its merits, is natural enough, and well 
enough ; no one can reasonably find any fault with such a 
sign of grateful feeling ; but I know of nothing more revolt- 


THE REDSKINS. 


5i 

lug than to see twenty grave faces arrayed round a table, 
employed as so many tasters at a Rhenish wine sale, while 
the cheeks of their host look like those of Boreas, owing to 
the process of sucking syphons. 

When my dear grandmother rose, imitated by the four 
bright-faced girls, who did as she set the example, and 
said, as was customary with the old school, “ Well, gen 
tlemen, I leave you to your wine; but you will recollect 
that you will be most welcome guests in the drawing* 
room,” my uncle caught her hand, and insisted she 
should not quit us. There was something exceedingly 
touching, to my eyes, in the sort of intercourse, and in the 
affection which existed between my uncle Ro and his mother. 
A bachelor himself, while she was a widow, they were par- 
ticularly fond of each other ; and many is the time that I 
have seen him go up to her, when we \vere alone, and pat 
her cheeks, and then kiss them, as one might do so to a 
much-beloved sister. My grandmother always received 
these little liberties with perfect good-humour, and with evi- 
dent affection. In her turn, I have frequently known her to 
approach ‘ Roger,’ as she always called him, and kiss his 
bald head, in a way that denoted she vividly remembered 
the time when he was an infant in her arms. On this occa- 
sion she yielded to his request, and resumed her seat, the 
girls imitating her, nothing loth, as they had done in rising. 
The conversation then, naturally enough, reverted to the 
stale of the country. 

“ It has much surprised me, that the men in authority 
among us have confined all their remarks and statements to 
the facts of the Rensselaer and Livingston estates,” observed 
my grandmother, “ when there are difficulties existing in 
so many others.” 

“ The explanation is very simple, my good mother,” 
answered uncle Ro. “ The Rensselaer estates have the 
quarter-sales, and chickens, and days’ works; and there is 
much of the ad captandum argument about such things, that 
does very well to \v’ork up for political effect ; whereas, on 
the other estates, these great auxiliaries must be laid- aside. 
It is just as certain, as it is that the sun has risen this day, 
that an extensive and concerted plan exists to transfer the 
freehold rights of the landlords, on nearly every property 


THE REDSKINS. 


52 


in the State, to the tenants ; and that, too, on conditions 
unjustly favourable to the last ; but you will find nothing 
of the sort in the messages of governors, or speeches of 
legislators, who seem to think all is said, when they have 
dwelt on the expediency of appeasing the complaints, of the 
tenants, as a high political duty, without stopping to inquire 
whether those complaints are founded in right or not. The 
injury that will ne done to the republic, by showing men 
how much can be effected by clamour, is of itself incalcu- 
lable. It would take a generation to do away the evil con- 
sequences of the example, were the anti-rent combination 
to be utterly defeated to-morrow.” . 

“ 1 find that the general argument agaP^t the landlords 
is a want of title, in those cases in which nothing better can 
be found,” observed, Mr. Warren. “The lecturer, to-day, 
seemed to condemn any title that was derived from the 
King, as defeated by the conquest over that monarch, by the 
war of the revolution.” 

“ A most charming consummation that would have been 
for the heroic deeds of the Littlepages ! There were my 
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all in arms, in 
that war ; the two first as general officers, and the last as 
a major; and the result of all their hardships and dangers 
is to be to rob themselves of their own property ! I am 
aware that this silly pretence has been urged, even in a 
court of justice; but folly, and wrong, and madness, are 
not yet quite ripe enough among us, to carry such a doc- 
trine down. As ‘ coming events cast their shadows before,’ 
it is possible we are to take this very movement, however, 
as the dawn of the approaching- day of American reason, 
and not as a twilight left by the departed rays of a sun of 
a period of mental darkness.” 

“You surely do not apprehend, uncle Ro, that these 
people can really get Hugh’s lands away from him !” ex- 
claimed Patt, reddening with anxiety and anger. 

“No one can say, my dear; for, certainly, no one is 
safe when opinions and acts, like those which have been 
circulated and attempted among us of late years, can be 
acted on without awakening very general indignation. Look 
to the moneyed classes at this very moment ; agonized and 
excited on the subject of a war about Oregon^ — a thing very 


I 

I 

I 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


53 

little likely to occur, though certainly possible; while they 
manifest ihe utmost indifference to this anti-rentism, though 
j the positive existence of everything connected with just 
social organization is directly involved in its fate. One is 
a bare possibility, but it convulses the class I have named ; 
while the other is connected with the existence of civilized 
society itself; yet it has ceased to attract attention, and is 
nearly forgotten ! Every man in the community, whose 
means raise him at all above the common level, has a direct 
interest in facing this danger, and in endeavouring to put it 
I down ; but scarcely any one appears to be conscious of the 
importance of the crisis. We have only one or two more 
steps to make, in order to become like Turkey; a country 
in which the wealthy are obliged to conceal their means, 

I in order to protect it from the grasp of the government ; 
but no one seems to care at all about it !” 

“ Some recent travellers among us have said that we have 
nearly reached that pass already, as our rich affect great 
simplicity and plainness in public, while they fill their houses 
i in private with all the usual evidences of wealth and luxury, 
j I think de Tocqueville, among others, makes that remark.” 

I “ Ay, that is merely one of the ordinarily sagacious re- 
i marks of the European, who, by not understanding the Ame- 
I rican history, confounds causes and makes mistakes. The 
plainness of things in public is no more than an ancient 
habit of the country, while the elegance and luxury in pri- 
j vale are a very simple and natural consequence of the tastes 
of women who live in a state of society in which they are 
limited to the very minimum of refined habits and intellectual 
pleasures. The writer who made this mistake is a very clever 
man, and has exceeding merit, considering his means of ascer- 
taining truth ; but he has made very many similar blunders.” 

“Nevertheless, Mr. Littlepage,” resumed the rector, who 
was a gentleman, in all the senses of the word, and knew 
the world, and the best part of it, too, even while he had 
preserved an admirable simplicity of character, “ changes 
have certainly taken place among us, of the nature alluded 
to by M. de Tocqueville.” 

“That is quite true, sir; but they have also takeh place 
elsewhere. When I was a boy, I can well remember to 
have seen coaches-and-six in this country, and almost every 

5 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


54 

man of fortune drove his coach-and-four ; whereas, now 
such a thing is of the rarest occurrence possible. But the 
same is true all over Christendom ; for when I first went to 
Europe, coaches-and-six, with outriders, and all that sort of 
state, was an every-day thing ; whereas it is now never, or 
at least very seldom, seen. Improved roads, steam-boats, 
and railroads, can produce such changes, without having 
recourse to the oppression of the masses.” 

“ I am sure,” put in Patt, laughing, “ if publicity be what 
Mons. de Tocqueville requires, there is publicity enough in 
New York ! All the new-fashioned houses are so construct- 
ed, with their low balconies and lower windows, that any- 
body can see in at their windows. If what I have read and 
heard of a Paris house be true, standing between cour et 
Jardin, there is infinitely more of privacy there than here ; 
and one might just as well say that the Parisians bury them- 
selves behind porte cocJi^res, and among trees, to escape the 
attacks of the Faubourg St. Antoine, as to say we retreat 
into our houses to be fine, lest the mobocracy would not 
tolerate us.” 

“ The girl has profited by your letters, I see, Hugh,” said 
my uncle, nodding his head in approbation ; “ and what is 
more, she makes a suitable application of her tuition, or 
rather, of yours. No, no, all that is a mistake ; and, as 
Martha says, no houses are so much in the street as those 
of the new style in our own towns. It would be far more 
just to say that, instead of retiring within doors to be fine, 
as Patt calls it, unseen by envious neighbours, the Manhat- 
tanese, in particular, turn their dwellings wrong side out, 
lest their neighbours should take offence at not being per- 
mitted to see all that is going on within. But, neither is 
true. The house is the more showy because it is most under 
woman’s control ; and it would be just as near the truth to 
say that the reason why the American men appear abroad 
in plpin blue, and black, and brown clothes, while their 
wives and daughters are at home in silks and satins — ay, 
even in modern brocades — is an apprehension of the masses, 
as to ascribe the plainness of street life, compared to that 
within doors, to the same cause. There is a good deal of 
difference between a salon in the Faubourg, or the Chaussee 
d’Autin, and even on the Boulevard des Italiens. But, Jolia 


THEREDSKINS. 55 

is craning \^ith his neck, out there on the piazza, as if our 
red brethren were at hand.” 

So it was, in point of fact, and everybody now rose from 
table, without ceremony, and went forth to meet our guests. 
We had barely time to reach the lawn, the ladies having 
run for their hats in the meantime, before Prairiefire, Flinty- 
heart, Manytongues, and all the rest of them, came up, on 
the sort of half trot that distinguishes an Indian’s march. 

Notwithstanding the change in our dresses, my uncle and 
myself were instantly recognised, and courteously saluted 
by the principal chiefs. Then our wigs were gravely of- 
fered to us, by two of the younger men ; but we declined 
receiving them, begging the gentlemen who had them in 
keeping, to do us the honour to accept them, as tokens of 
our particular regard. This was done with great good will, 
and with a pleasure that was much too obvious to be con- 
cealed. Half an hour later, I observed that each of the 
young forest dandies had a wig on his otherwise naked head, 
with a peacock’s feather stuck quite knowingly in the lank 
hair. The effect was somewhat ludicrous ; particularly on 
the young ladies ; but I saw that each of the warriors him- 
self looked round, as if to ask for the admiration that he 
felt his appearance ought to awaken ! 

No sooner were the salutations exchanged, than the red- 
men began to examine the house — the cliff on which it stood 
— the meadows beneath, and the surrounding ground. At 
first, we supposed, that they were struck with the extent and 
solidity of the buildings, together vdth a certain air of finish 
and neatness, that is not everywhere seen in America, even 
in the vicinity of its better-class houses ; but Manytongues 
soon undeceived us. My uncle asked him, why all the red- 
men had broken off, and scattered themselves around the 
buildings, some looking here, others pointing there, and all 
manifestly earnest and much engaged with something; 
though it was not easy to understand what that something 
was; intimating his supposition that they might be sU’uck 
with the buildings. 

“ Lord bless ye, no sir,” answered the interpreter ; “they 
don’t care a straw about the house, or any house. There’s 
Flintyheart, in particular ; he’s a chief that you can no more 
move with riches, and large housen, and sich like matters, 

i 


THE REDSKINS. 


50 

than you can make the Mississippi run up stream. When i 
we went to Uncle Sam’s house, at Washington, he scarce 
condescended to look at it ; and the Capitol had no more ef- 
fect on any on ’em, than if it had been a better sort of wig- 
wam ; not so much, for that matter, as Injins be curious m 
wigwams. What’s put ’em up, on a trail like, just now, is : 
he knowledge that this is the spot where a battle was fit, 
something like ninety seasons ago, in which the Upright I 
Onondago was consarned, as well as some of their own peo- 
ple on t’other side — that’s what’s put ’em in commotion.” ■ 

“ And why does Flintyheart talk to those around him j 
with so much energy ; and point to the fiats, and the cliff, 
and the ravine yonder, that lies beyond the wigwam of 
Susquesus?” 

“Ah! Is that, then, the wigwam of the Upright Onon- 
dago !” exclaimed the interpreter, betraying some such inte- 
rest as one might manifest on unexpectedly being told that 
he saw Mount Vernon or Monticello, for the first time in his 
life. “Well, it’s something to have seen that; though it 
will be more to see the man himself; for all the tribes on the ! 
upper prairies, are full of his story and his behaviour.- No { 
Injin, since the time of Tamenund himself, has made as i 
much talk, of late years, as Susquesus, the Upright Onon- ^ 
dago, unless it might be Tecumthe, perhaps. But, what oc- ! 
cupies Flintyheart, just at this moment, is an account of the 
battle, in which his father’s grandfather lost his life, though 
he did not lose his scalp. That disgrace he is now telling 
on ’em, he escaped, and glad enough is his descendant, that 
it was so. It’s no great matter to an Injin to be killed ; but | 
he’d rather escape losing his scalp, or being struck at all by I 
the inirny, if it can possibly be made to turn out so. Now | 
he’s talking of some young pale-face that was killed, whom I 
ho calls Lover of Fun — and, now he’s got on some nigger, i 
who he says fit like a devil.” ! 

“ All these persons are known to us, by our traditions, | 
also !” exclaimed my uncle, with more interest than I had 1 
known him manifest for many a day. “ But I ’m amazed to | 
find that the Indians retain so accurate an account of such | 
small matters, for so long a time.” I 

“ It isn’t a small matter to them. Their battles is seldom ! 
on a very great scale, and they make great account of any j 


I TIIEREDSKINS. 57 

j tjkrimmage m. which noted warriors have fallen.” Here 
! Man3’tongues paused for a minute, and listened attentively 
I to the discourse of the chiefs; after which he resumed his 
I explanations. “They have met with a great difficulty in 
I the house,” he continued, “ while everything else is right. 
They understand the cliff of rocks, the position of the build- 
ings themselves, that ravine thereaway, and all the rest of 
the things hereabouts, except the house.” 

“What may be the difficulty with the house? Does it 
not stand in the place it ought to occupy?” 

“ That ’s just their difficulty. It does stand where it ought 
to stand, but it isn’t the right sort of house, though they say 
the shape agrees well enough — one side out to the fields, 
like ; two sides running back to the cliff, and the cliff itself 
for the other. But their traditions say that their warriors 
indivour’d to burn out your forefathers, and that they built 
a fire again’ the side of the buildin’, which they never would 
have done had it been built of stone, as this house is built. 
That^s what partic’larly puzzles them.” 

“ Then their traditions are surprisingly minute and accu- 
rate ! The house which then stood on, or near this spot, 
and which did resemble the present building in the ground 
plan, was of squared logs, and might have been set on fire, 
and an attempt was actually made to do so, but was suc- 
cessfully resisted. Your chiefs have had a true account; 
but changes have been made here. The house of logs stood 
near fifty years, when it was replaced by this dwelling, 
which was originally erected about sixty years ago, and 
has been added to since, on the old design. No, no — the 
traditions are surprisingly accurate.” 

This gave the Indians great satisfaction, as soon as the 
fact was communicated to them ; and from that instant all 
their doubts and uncertainty were ended. Their own know- 
I ledge of the progress of things in a settlement, gave them 
I the means of comprehending any other changes ; though the 
j shape of this building having so nearly corresponded with 
that of which their traditions spoke, they had become em- 
i barrassed by the difference in the material. While they 
i were still continuing their examinations, and ascertaining 
localities to their own satisfaction, my uncle and myself 
continued the discourse with Manytongues. 


58 


THE REDSKINS. 


“ I am curious to know,” said my uncle, “ what may be 
the history of Susquesus, that a party of chiefs like these 
j should travel so far out of their way, to pay him the ho- 
I mage of a visit. Is his great age the cause ?” 

“ That is one reason, sartainly ; though there is another, 
that is of more account, but which is known only to them- 
selves. I have often tried to get the history out of them, 
but never could succeed. As long as I can remember, the 
Onondagoes, and Tuscaroras, and the Injins of the old New 
York tribes, that have found their way up to the prairies, 
have talked of the Upright Onondago, who must have been 
an old man when I was born. Of late years, they have 
talked more and more of him ; and so good an opportunity' 
offering to come and see him, there would have been great 
disappointment out West, had it been neglected. His age 
i is, no doubt, one principal cause; but there is another, though 
I have never been able to discover what it is.” 

“This Indian has been in communication, and connected 
with my immediate family, now near, if not quite ninety 
years. He was with my grandfather, Cornelius Littlepage, 
in the attack on Ty% that was made by Abercrombie, in 
1758 ; and here we are within twelve or thirteen years of a 
j century from that event. I believe my great-grandfather, 
Herman Mordaunt, had even some previous knowledge of 
him. As long as I can remember, he has been a grey- 
headed old man; and we suppose both he and the negro 
who lives with him, to have seen fully a hundred and twenty 
years, if not more.” 

“ Something of importance happened to Susquesusj or the 
Trackless, as he was then called, about ninety-three winters 
I ago; that much I’ve gathered from what has fallen from 
I the chiefs at different times ; but, what that something w^as, 
j it has exceeded my means to discover. At any rate, it has 
I quite as much to do with this visit as the Withered Hemlock’s 
! great age. Injins respect years ; and they respect wisdom 
I highly ; but they respect courage and justice most of all. 
j The tarm ‘ Upright’ has its meaning, depend on’t.” 

I We were greatly interested by all this, as indeed were my 
I grandmother and her sw’eet companions. Mary Warren, in 
particular, manifested a lively interest in Susquesus’ history, 
as was betrayed in a brief dialogue I now had with her^ 

[ 


THE REDSKINS. 


59 

; walking to and fro in front of the piazza, while the rest of 
j the party were curiously watching the movements of the 
j still excited savages. 

j “My father and I have often visited the two old men, ! 
I and have been deeply interested in them,” observed this j 
i intelligent, yet simple-minded girl, — “with the Indian, in j 

j particular, we have felt a strong sympathy, for nothing is j 

plainer than the keenness with which he still feels on the i 
subject of his own people. We have been told that he is | 
often visited by red-men — or, at least, as often as any come j 
near him; and they are said ever to exhibit a great reve- j 
rence for his years, and respect for his character.” I 

“ This 1 know to be true, for I have frequently seen those j 
I who have come to pay him visits. But they have usually j 
! been merely your basket-making, half-and-half sort of sa- 
I vages, who have possessed the characteristics of neither 
! race, entirely. This is the first instance in which I have 
I heard of so marked a demonstration of respect — how is that, 

I dear grandmother? can you recall any other instance of 
I Susquesus’s receiving such a decided mark of homage from 
j his own people as this?” 

I “ This is the third within my recollection, Hugh. Shortly 
I after my marriage, which was not long after the revolution, 
i as you may know, there was a party here on a visit to Sus- | 
i quesus. It remained ten days. The chiefs it contained ! 

I were said to be Onondagoes altogether, or warriors of his j 
I own particular people; and something like a misunderstand- j 
j ing was reported to have been made up; though what it was, i 
j I confess I w’as too thoughtless then to inquire. Both, my j 
I father-in-law, and my uncle Chainbearer, it was always | 

I believed, knew the whole of the Trackless’ story, though j 
I neither ever related it to me. -I do not believe your grand- j 
father knew it,” added the venerable speaker, with a sort of | 
lender regret, “ or I think I should have heard it. But that I 
first visit was soon after Susquesus and Jaaf took possession i 
I of their house, and it was reported, at the time, that the 
I strangers remained so long, in the hope of inducing Sus to | 

I rejoin his tribe. If such was their wish, however, it failed; | 

I for there he is now, and there he has ever been since he ! 

I 6rst went to the hut.” 


60 


THE REDSKINS. 


“And the second visit, grandmother — you mentionea i 
that there were three.” ; 

“Oh ! tell us of them all, Mrs. Littlepage,” added Mary ; 
earnestly, blushing up to the eyes the moment after at her ; 
own eagerness. My dear grandmother smiled benevo- ! 
lently on both, and I thought she looked a little archly at 
us, as old ladies sometimes will, when the images of their 
own youth recur to their minds. 

“ You appear to have a common sympathy in these red- 
men, my children,” she answered, Mary fairly blushing 
scarlet at hearing herself thus coupled with me in the term 
‘ children,’ — “ and I have great pleasure in gratifying your 
curiosity. The second great visit that Susquesus received 
from Indians occurred the very year you were born, Hugh, 
and then we really felt afraid we might lose -the old man ; 
so earnest were his own people in their entreaties that he 
would go away with them. But he would not. Here he 1 

has remained ever since, and a few weeks ago he told me | 

that here he should die. If these Indians hope to prevail j 

any better, I am sure they will be disappointed.” ‘ j 

“ So he told my father, also,” added Mary Warren, “ who j 

has often spoken to him of death, and has hoped to open j 

his eyes to the truths of the gospel.” j 

“With what success. Miss Warren? That is a consum- | 
mation which would terminate the old man’s career most j 
worthily.” j 

“ With little, I fear,” answered the charming girl, in a - 

low, melancholy tone. “At least, I know that my father ! 

has been disappointed. Sus listens to him attentively, but 
he manifests no feeling beyond respect for the speaker. At- 
tempts have been made to induce him to enter the church 
before, but ” 

“ You were about to add something. Miss Warren, which 
still remains to be said.” 

“ I can add it for her,” resumed my grandmother, “ for 
certain I am that Mary Warren will never add it herself. 
The fact is, as you must know, Hugh, from your own obser | 
\ration, that Mr. Warren’s predecessor was an unfaithful and i 
selfish servant of the church — one who did little good to 
any, not even himself. In this country it takes a good deal, | 


THE REDSKINS. 


Ui 

in a clergyman, to wear out the patience of a people; but it 
can be done; and when they once get to look at him 
tiirough the same medium as that with which other men are 
viewed, a reaction follows, under which he is certain to suf- 
fer. We could all wish to throw a veil over the conduct of 
the late incumbent of St. Andrew’s, but it requires one so 
much thicker and larger than common, that the task is not 
easy. Mary has merely meant that better instruction, and 
a closer attention to duty, might have done more for Track- 
less twenty years ago,* than they can do to-day.” 

“ How much injury, after all, faithless ministers can do 
to the church of God ! One such bad example unsettles 
more minds than twenty good examples keep steady.” 

“ I do not know that, Hugh ; but of one thing 1 am cer- 
tain — that more evil is done by pretending to struggle for 
the_honour of the church, by attempting to sustain its un- 
worthy ministers, than could be done by at once admitting 
their ofTences, in cases that are clear. We all know that 
the ministers of the altar are but men, and as such are to 
be expected to fall — certain to do so without Divine aid — but 
if we cannot make its ministers pure, we ought to do all we 
can to keep the altar itself from contamination.” 

“ Yes, yes, grandmother — but the day has gone by for ex 
o-fficio religion in the American branch of the church” — here 
Mary Warren joined the other girls — “ at least. And it is 
so best. Suspicions may be base and unworthy, but a blind 
credulity is contemptible. If I see a chestnut forming on 
yonder branch, it would be an act of exceeding folly in me 
to suppose that the tree was a walnut, though all the nur- 
sery-men in the country were ready to swear to it.” 

My grandmother smiled, but she also walked away, when 
I joined my uncle again. 

“ The interpreter tells me, Hugh,” said the last, “ that 
the chiefs wish to pay their first visit to the hut this evening. 
I Luckily, the old farm-house js empty just now, since Miller 
I has taken possession of the new one; and I have directed 
Mr. Manylongues to establish himself there, while he and 
I his party remain here. There is a kitchen, all ready for 
their use, and it is only to send over a few cooking utensils, 
(hat is to say, a pot or two, and fifty bundles of straw, to 
set them up in housekeeping. For all this I have just given 
VoL. II. — 6 


— 


62 THEREDSKINS. 

orders, not wishing to disturb you, or possibly unwilling ta 
lay down a guardian’s authority ; and there is the straw 
j already loading up in yonder barn-yard. In half an hour 
they may rank themselves among the pot-wollopers of Ra- 
I vensnest.” 

“ Shall we go with them to the house before, or after they 
have paid their visit to Susquesus ?” 

“ Before, certainly. John has volunteered to go over and 
let the Onondago know the honour that is intended him, and 
to assist him in making his toilet ; for the red-man would 
not like to be taken in undress any more than another. 
While this is doing, we can inslal our guests in their new 
abode, and see the preparations commenced for their supper. 

I As for the ^Injins,^ there is little to apprehend from them, I 
I fancy, so long as we have a strong party of the real Simon 
j Pures within call.” 

i After this, we invited the interpreter to lead his chiefs 
towards the dwelling they were to occupy, preceding the 
party ourselves, and leaving the ladies on the lawn. At that 
season, the days were at the longest, and it would be plea- 
santer to pay the visit to the hut in the cool of the evening 
I than to go at an earlier hour. My grandmother ordered 

I her covered wagon before we left her, intending to be pre- 

sent at an interview which everybody felt must be most inte- 
resting. 

The empty building which was thus appropriated to the 
use of the Indians was quite a century old, having been 
erected by my ancestor, Herman Mordaunt, as the original 
farm-house on his own particular farm. For a long time it 
had been used in its original character ; and when it was 
found convenient to erect another, in a more eligible spot, 
and of more convenient form, this old structure had been 
preserved as a relic, and from year to year its removal had 
been talked of, but not effected. It remained, therefore, for 
me to decide on its fate, unless, indeed, the ‘ spirit of the 
Institutions’ should hapf:n to get hold of it, and take its 
control out of my hands, along with that of the rest of 
my property, by way of demonstrating to mankind how 
thoroughly the great State of New York is imbued with a 
iove of rational liberty ! 

As we walked towards the “ old farm-house,” Miller came 


THE REDSKINS. 


63 

from tlie other building to meet us. He had learned that 
his friends, the pedlars, were his — what shall I call myself? 
‘Master’ would be the legal term, and it would be good 
English ,* but it would give the “ honourable gentleman” 
and his friends mortal offence, and I am not now to learn 
that there are those among us who deny facts that are as ' 
plain as the noses on their faces, and who fly right into the 
face of the law whenever it is convenient. I shall not, 
however, call myself a “ boss” to please even these eminent 
statesmen, and therefore must be content with using a term 
that, if the moving spirits of the day can prevail, will soon 
be sufficiently close in its signification, and call myself Tom 
Miller’s nothing. 

It was enough to see that Miller was a good deal embar- 
' rassed with the dilemma in which he was placed. For a 
great many years he and his family had been in the employ- 
ment of me and mine, receiving ample pay, as all such men 
ever do — when they are so unfortunate as to serve a malig- 
nant aristocrat — much higher pay than they would get in 
the service of your Newcomes, and Holmeses, and Tubbses, 
besides far belter treatment in all essentials ; and now he had 
only to carry out the principles of the anti-renters to claim 
the farm he and they had so long worked, as of right. Yes, 
the same principles would just as soon give this hireling my 
home and farm as it would give any tenant on my estate 
that which he worked. It is true, one party received wages, 
while the other paid rent ; but these facts do not affect the 
principle at all; since he who received the wages got no 
other benefit from his toil, while he who paid the rent was 
master of all the crops — I beg pardon, the boss of all the 
crops. The common title of both — if any title at all exist — 
is the circumstance that each had expended his labour on a 
particular farm, and consequently had a right to own it for 
all future time. 

Miller made some awkward apologies for not recognising 
me, and endeavoured to explain away one or two little things 
that he must have felt put him in rather an awkward posi- 
tion, but to which neither my uncle nor myself attached any 
moment. We knew that poor Tom was human, and that 
the easiest of all transgressions for a man to fall into were 
those connected with his self-love; and that the temptation 


THE REDSKINS. 


04 

to a man who has the consciousness of not being anywhere 
near the summit of the social ladder, is a strong inducement 
to err when he thinks there is a chance of getting up a 
round or two; failing of success in which, it requires higher 
feelings, and perhaps a higher station, than that of Tom 
Miller’s, not to leave him open to a certain demoniacal 
gratification which so many experience at the prospect of 
beholding others dragged down to their own level. We 
heard Tom’s excuses kindly, but did not commit ourselves 
by promises or declarations of any sort. 


CHAPTER V. 

“Two hundred years ! two hundred years ! 

How much of human power and pride, 

What glorious hopes, what gloomy fears, 

Have sunk beneath their noiseless tide !” 

PlERPONT. 

It wanted about an hour to sunset, — or sun-doivn, to use 
our common Americanism — when we all left the new quar- 
ters of our red brethren, in order to visit the huts. As the 
moment approached, it was easy to trace in the Indians the 
evidence of strong interest ; mingled, as we fancied, with a 
little awe. Several of the chiefs had improved the interven- 
ing time, to retouch the wild conceits that they had previ- 
ously painted on their visages, rendering their countenances 
still more appalling. Flinlyheart, in particular, was con- 
spicuous in his grim embellishments; though Prairiefire haa 
not laid any veil between the eye and his natural hue. 

As the course of my narrative will now render it neces- 
sary to relate conversations that occurred in languages and 
dialects of which I know literally nothing, it may be well to 
say hero, once for all, that I got as close a translation of every- 
thing that passed, as it was possible to obtain, from Many- 
tongues ; and wrote it all dowm, either on the spot, or immedi- 
ately after returning to the Nest. This explanation may be ne- 


TIIEREDSKINS. 65 

cossary in order to prevent some of those who may read 
this manuscript, from fancying that I am inventing. I 

The carriage of my grandmother had left the door, filled ' 
with its smiling freight, several minutes before we took up 
our line of march. This last, however, was not done with- 
out a little ceremony, and some attention to order. As In- 
dians rarely march except in what is called “ Indian file,” 
or singly, each man following in the footsteps of his leader, 
such was the mode of advancing adopted on the present occa- 
sion. The Prairiefire led the line, as the oldest chief, and 
the one most distinguished in council. Flintyheart was 
second, while the others were arranged by some rule of 
precedency that was known to themselves. As soon as the 
line had formed, it commenced its march ; my uncle, the 
interpreter, and myself walking at the side of Prairiefire, 
while Miller, followed by half-a-dozen of the curious from 
the Nest House and the farm, followed in the rear. 

It will be remembered that John had been sent to the hut 
to announce the intended visit. His stay had been much . 
longer than was anticipated ; but when the procession had 
gone about half the distance it was to march, it was met by 
this faithful domestic, on his return. The worthy fellow 
wheeled into line, on my flank, and communicated what he 
had to say while keeping up with the column. 

“To own the truth, Mr. Hugh,” he said, “the old man 
was more moved by hearing that about fifty Indians had 
come a long distance to see him — ” 

“Seventeen — you should have said seventeen, John; that 
being the exact number.” 

“ Is it, sir? Well, I declare that I thought there might 
be fifty — I once thought of calling ’em forty, sir, but it then 
occurred to me that it might not be enough.” All this time 
John was looking over his shoulder to count the grave-look- 
ing warriors who followed in a line; and satisfied of his 
mistake, one of the commonest in the world for men of his 
class, that of exaggeration, he resumed his report. “ Well, 
sir, I do believe you are right, and I have been a little hout. 
But old Sus was quite moved, sir, when I told him of the 
intended visit, and so I stayed to help the old gentleman to 
dress and paint ; for that nigger, Yop, is of no more use 
now, you know, sir, than if he had never lived in a gentle- 
6 ^ 


THE REDSKINS. 


G6 

man’s family at all. It must have been havvful times, sir^ 
when the gentry of York had nothing but niggers to serve 
’em, sir.” 

“ We did pretty well, John, notwithstanding,” unswered 
my uncle, who had a strong attachment to the old black 
race, that once so generally filled all the menial stations of 
the country, as is apt to be the case with all gentlemen 
of fifty ; “ we did pretty well, notwithstanding. Jaaf, how- 
ever, never acted strictly as a body-servant, though he was 
my grandfather’s own man.” 

“ Well, sir, if there had been nobody but Yop at the hut, 
Sus would never have been decently dressed and painted for 
this occasion. As it is, I hope that you will be satisfied, 
sir, for the old gentleman looks remarkably well ; — Indian 
fashion, you know, sir.” 

“ Did the Onondago ask any questions ?” 

“ Why, 3^ou know how it is wdth him in that particular, 
Mr. Hugh. He’s a very silent person, is Susquesus ; most 
remarkable so when he ’as any one has can entertain him 
with conversation. I talked most of the time myself, sir, 
has I commonly does when I pays him a wisit. Indians is 
remarkably silent, in general, I believe, sir.” 

“ And whose idea was it to paint and dress — yours, or 
the Onondago’s ?” 

“ Why, sir, I supposes the hidear to die Indian, by origin, 
though in this case it was my surgestion. Yes, sir, I 
surgested the thought; though I will not take it on myself 
to say Sus had not some hinclination that way, even before 
I ’inted my hopinion.” 

“Did you think of the paint?” put in uncle Ro. “I do 
not remember to have seen the Trackless in his paint these 
thirty years. I once asked him to paint and dress on a 
Fourth of July ; it was about the time you were born, 
Hugh — and I remember the old fellow’s answer as well as 
if it were given yesterday. ‘ When the tree ceases to bear 
fruit,’ was the substance of his reply, ‘ blossoms only remind 
the observer of its uselessness.’ ” 

“ I have heard that Susquesus was once considered very 
eloquent, even for an Indian.” 

“I remember him to have had some such reputation, 
though I will not answer for its justice. Occasionally, I 


THE REDSKINS. 


67 


have heard strong expressions in his brief, clipping manner 
of speaking English, — but, in common,. he has been con- 
tent to be simple and taciturn. I remember to have heard 
my father say that when be first made the acquaintance of 
Susquesus, and that must have been quite sixty years since, 
the old man had great apprehension of being reduced to 
the mortifying necessity of making baskets and brooms; 
but, his dread on that subject once removed, he had ever 
after seemed satisfied and without care.” 

“ Without care is the condition of those who have least, 
I believe, sir. It would not be an easy matter for the 
government of New York to devise ways and means to 
deprive Sus of his farms, either by instituting suits for title, 
destroying quarter-sales, laying taxes, or resorting to any 
other of the ingenious expedients known to the Albany 
politics.” 

My uncle did not answer for quite a minute ; when he 
did, it was thoughtfully and with great deliberation of 
manner. 

“ Your term of ‘ Albany Politics’ has recalled to my 
mind,” he said, “ a consideration that has often forced itself 
upon my reflections. There is doubtless an advantage — 
nay, there may be a necessity for cutting up the local affairs 
of this country, by entrusting their management to so many 
local governments; but there is, out of all question, one 
great evil consequent on it. When legislators have the 
great affairs of state on their hands, the making of war and 
peace, the maintaining of armies, and the control of all those 
interests which connect one country with another, the mind 
gets to be enlarged, and with it the character and disposi- 
tion of the man. But, bring men together, who must act, 
or appear incapable of acting, and set them at work upon 
the smaller concerns of legislation, and it’s ten to one but 
they betray the narrowness of their education by the nar- 
rowness of their views. This is the reason of the vast dif- 
ference that every intelligent man knows to exist between 
Albany and Washington.” 

“ Do you then think our legislators so much inferior to 
those of Europe?” 

“ Only, as they are provincial ; which nine in ten neces- 
sarily are, since nine Americans in ten, even among the 


THE REDSKINS. 


68 

educated classes, are decidedly provincial. This term ‘ prcn 
vinciaP covers quite one-half of the distinctive sins of the 
country, though many laugh at a deficiency, of which, in 
the nature of things, they can have no notion, as purely 
a matter of the imagination. The active communications 
of the Americans certainly render them surprisingly little 
obnoxious to such a charge, for their age and geographical 
position. These last disadvantages produce effects, never- 
theless, that are perhaps unavoidable. When you have had 
an opportunity of seeing something of the society of the 
towns, for instance, after your intercourse with the world of 
Europe, you will understand what I mean, for it is a dif- 
ference much more readily felt than described. Provin- 
cialism, however, may be defined as a general tendency to 
the narrow views which mark a contracted association, and 
an ignorance of the great world — not in the sense of sta- 
tion solely, but in the sense of liberality, intelligence, and a 
knowledge of all the varied interests of life. ,But, here we 
are, at the hut.” 

There we were, sure enough. The evening was delight- 
ful. Susquesus had seated himself on a stool, on the green 
sward that extended for some distance around the door of 
his habitation, and where he was a little in shade, protected 
from the strong rays of a setting, but June, sun. A tree 
cast its shadow over his person. Jaaf was posted on one 
side, as no doubt, he himself thought best became his colour 
and character. It is another trait of human nature, that 
while the negro affects a great contempt and aversion for the 
red-man, the Indian feels his own mental superiority to the 
domestic slave. I had never seen Susquesus in so grand 
costume, as that in which he appeared this evening. Ha- 
bitually he wore his Indian vestments ; the leggings, moca- 
sin, breech-piece, blanket or calico shirt, according to the 
season ; but I had never before seen him in his ornaments 
and paint. The first consisted of two medals which bore 
the images, the one of George III, the other of his grand- 
father — of two more, bestowed by the agents of the republic; 
of large rings in his ears, that dropped nearly to his shoul- 
ders, and of bracelets formed of the teeth of some animal, 
that, at first, I was afraid was a man. A tomahawk that 
was kept as bright as friction could make it, and a sheathed 


THE REDSKINS. 


69 

knife, were in his girdle, while his well-tried rifle stood lean- 
ing against a tree ; weapons that were now exhibited as 
emblems of the past, since their owner could scarcely ren- 
der either very effective. The old man had used the paint 
with unusual judgment for an Indian, merely tinging his 
cheeks' with a colour that served to give brightness to eyes 
that had once been keen as intense expression could render 
them, but which were now somewhat dimmed by age. In 
other respects, nothing was changed in the customary neat 
simplicity that reigned in and around the cabin, though Jaaf 
had brought out, as if to sun, an old livery coat of his own, 
that he had formerly worn, and a cocked hat, in which I 
have been told he was wont actually to exhibit himself of 
Sundays, and holidays ; reminders of the superiority of a 
“ nigger” over an “ Injin.” 

Three or four rude benches, which belonged to the esta- 
blishment of the hut, were placed at a short distance in front 
of Susquesus, in a sort of semicircle, for the reception of 
his guests. Towards these benches, then, Prairiefire led the 
way, followed by all the chiefs. Although they soon ranged 
themselves in the circle, not one took his seat for fully a 
minute. That time they all stood gazing intently, but reve- 
rently, towards the aged man before them, who returned 
their look, as steadily and intently as it was given. Then, 
at a signal from their leader, who on this occasion was Prai- 
riefire, every man seated himself. This change of position, 
however, did not cause the silence to be broken ; but there 
they all sat, for quite ten minutes, gazing at the Upright 
Onondago, who, in his turn, kept his look steadily fastened 
on his visiters. It was during this interval of silence that 
the carriage of my grandmother drove up, and stopped just 
without the circle of grave, attentive Indians, not one of 
whom even turned his head to ascertain who or what caused 
the interruption. No one spoke; my dear grandmother 
being a profoundly attentive observer of the scene, while all 
the bright faces around her, were so many eloquent pictures 
of curiosity, blended with some gentler and better feelings, 
exhibited in the most pleasing form of which humanity is 
susceptible. 

At length Susquesus himself arose, which he did with 
great dignity. of manner, and without any visible bodily 


THE REDSKINS. 


70 

effort, and spoke. His voice was a little tremulous, I 
thought, though more through feeling than age; but, on the 
whole, he was calm, and surprisingly connected and clear 
considering his great age. Of course, I was indebted to 
Manytongues for the interpretation of all that passed. 

“ Brethren,” commenced Susquesus, “ you are welcome. 
You have travelled on a long, and crooked, and thorny path, 
to find an old chief, whose tribe ought ninety summers ago 
to have looked upon him as among the departed. I am 
sorry no better sight will meet your eyes at the end of so 
long a journey. I would make the path back toward the 
setting sun broader and straighter if I knew how. But I 
do not know how. I am old. The pine in the woods is 
scarce older ; the villages of the pale-faces, through so 
many of which you have journeyed, are not half so old ; 
I was born when the white race were like the moose on the 
hills ; here and there one ; now they are like the pigeons 
after they have hatched their young. When I was a boy, 
my young legs could never run out of the woods into a 
clearing ; now, my old legs cannot carry me into the woods, 
they are so far off. Everything is changed in the land, 
but the red-man’s heart. That is like the rock which never 
alters. My children, you are welcome.” 

That speech, pronounced in the deep husky tones of ex- 
treme old age, yet relieved by the fire of a spirit that was 
smothered rather than extinct, produced a profound impres- 
sion. A low murmur of admiration passed among the 
guests, though neither rose to answer, until a sufficient time 
had seemed to pass, in which the wisdom that they had just 
been listeners to might make its proper impression. When 
this pause was thought to be sufficiently long to have pro- 
duced its effect, Prairiefire, a chief more celebrated in coun- 
cil even than in the field, arose to answer. His speech, 
freely translated, was in the following words. 

“Father; — your words are always wise — they are al- 
ways true. The path between your wigwam and our vil- 
lages is a long one — it is a crooked path, and many thorns 
and stones have been found on it. But all difficulties may 
be overcome. Two moons -ago, we were at one end of it; 
now we are at the other end. We have come with two 
notches on our sticks. One notch told us to go to the Great 


THE HEDSKINS. 


Council House of the Pale- face, to see our great pale- face 
Father — the other notch told us to come here, to see our 
great Red Father. We have been to the great Council 
House of the Pale-faces ; we have seen Uncle Sam. His 
arm is very long ; it reaches from the salt lake, the water 
of which we tried to drink, but it is too salt, to our own 
lakes, near the setting sun, of which the water is sweet. We 
never tasted water that was salt before, and we do not find 
it pleasant. We shall never taste it again ; it is not worth 
while to come so far to drink water that is salt. 

“ Uncle Sam is a wise chief. He has many counsellors. 
The council at his council-fire must be a great council — it 
has much to say. Its words ought to have some good in 
them, they are so many. We thought of our Red Father, 
while listening to them, and wanted to come here. We 
have come here. We are glad to find our Red Father still 
alive and well. The Great Spirit loves a just Indian, and 
takes care of him. A hundred winters, in his eyes, are like 
a single winter. We are thankful to him for having led us 
by the crooked and long path, at the end of which we have 
found the Trackless — the Upright of the Onondagoes. I 
have spoken.” 

A gleam of happiness shot into the swarthy lineaments 
of Susquesus, as he heard, in his own language, a well- 
merited appellation that had not greeted his ears for a period 
as long as the ordinary life of man. It was a title, a cog- 
nomen that told the story of his connection with his tribe ; 
and neither years, nor distance, nor new scenes, nor new 
ties, nor wars, nor strifes had caused him to forget the 
smallest incident connected with that tale. I gazed at the 
old man with awe, as his countenance became illuminated 
by the flood of recollections that was rushing into it, through 
the channel of his menaory, and the expressive glance my 
uncle threw at me, said how much he was impressed, also. 
One of the faculties of Manytongues was to be able to in- 
terpret, pari passu with the speaker ; and, standing between 
us and the carriage, he kept up, sentence by sentence, a low 
accompaniment of each speech, so that none of us lost a 
syllable of what was said. 

As soon as Prairiefire resumed his seat, another silence 
succeeded. It lasted several minutes, during which the only 


THE REDSKINS. 


I 72 

I audible sounds were various discontented grunts, accompa- 
! nicd by suppressed multerings on the part of old Jaaf, who 
I never could tolerate any Indian but his companion. That 
j the negro was dissatisfied with this extraordinary visit was 
j sufficiently apparent to us, but not one of all the >red men 
I took heed of his deportment. Sus, who was nearest to him, 

I must have heard his low grumbling, but it did not induce 

i him to change his look from the countenances of those in 
I his front for a single moment. On the other hand, the visit- 
j ers themselves seemed totally unconscious of the negro’s 
! presence, though in fact they were not, as subsequently ap- 
peared. In a word, the Upright Onondago was the centre 
of attraction for them, all other things being apparently for- 
I gotten for the time. 

At length there was a slight movement among the red- 
skins, and another arose. This man was positively the 
least well-looking of the whole party. His stature was lower 
i than that of the rest of the Indians ; his form was meagre 
I and ungraceful — the last, at least, while his mind was in a 
j state of rest ; and his appearance, generally, was wanting 
i in that nobleness of exterior which so singularly marked 
that of every one of his companions. As I afterwards 
learned, the name of this Indian was Eaglesflight, being so 
called from the soaring character of the eloquence in which 
he had been known to indulge. On the present occasion, 

I though his manner was serious and his countenance inte- 

I rested, the spirit within was not heaving with any of its ex- 

I Iraordinary throes. Still, such a man could not rise to 

j speak, and avoid creating some slight sensation among his 

I expectant auditors. Guarded as are the red-men in cene- 

1 ral on the subject of betraying their emotions, we could 

I detect something like a suppressed movement amono- his 

j friends when Eaglesflight stood erect. The orator com- 

I menced in a low but solemn manner, his tones changing 

j from the deep, impressive guttural, to the gentle and pa- 

i thetic, in a way to constitute eloquence of itself. As I 

listened, I fancied that never before did the human voice 
seem to possess so much winning power. The utterance 
was slow and impressive, as is usually the case with true 
orators. 

“ The Great Spirit makes men differently,” commenced 


THE REDSKINS. 


73 

! Eaglesflight. “ Some are like willows, that bend with the 
breeze and are broken in the storm. Some are pines, with 
slender trunks, few branches, and a soft wood. Now and 
j then there is an oak among them, which grows on the prai- 
rie, stretching its branches a great way, and making a plea- 
sant shade. This wood is hard ; it lasts a long time. Why 
has the Great Spirit made this difference in trees? — why 
does the Great Spirit make this difference in men ? There 
is a reason for it. He knows it, though we may not. What 
he does is always right ? 

“ I have heard orators at our Council Fires complain that 
things should be as they are. They say that the land, and 
the lakes, and the rivers, and the hunting-grounds, belong 
to the red-man only, and that no other colour ought ever to 
be seen there. The Great Spirit has thought otherwise, and 
what he thinks happens. Men are of many colours. Some 
are red, which is the colour of my father. Some are pale, 
which is the colour of my friends. Some are black, which 
is the colour of my father’s friend. He is black, though old 
age is changing his skin. All this is right; it comes from 
the Great Spirit, and we must not complain. 

“My father says he is very old — that the pine in the 
woods is scarce older. We know it. That is one reason 
why we have come so far to see him, though there is ano- 
ther reason. My father knows what that other reason is 
so do we. For a hundred winters and summers, that reason 
has not gone out of our minds. The old men have told it 
to the young men ; and the young men, when they have 
grown older, have told it to their sons. In this way it has 
reached our ears. How many bad Indians have lived in 
that time, have died, and are forgotten ! It is the good In- 
dian that lives longest in our memories. We wish to forget 
that the wicked ever were in our tribes. We never forget 
the good. T 

“ I have seen many changes. I am but a child, com- 
pared with my father ; but I feel the cold of sixty winters 
in my bones. During all that time, the red-men have been 
travelling towards the setting sun. I sometimes think I 
shall live to reach it ! It must be a great way off, but the 
man who never stops goes far. Let us go there, pale-faces 
will follow. Why all this is, I do not know. My father is 
VoL. II. — 7 


i 


74 TIIEREDSKINS. 

wiser than his son, and he may be able to tell us. I sit 
down to hear his answer.” 

I Although Eaglesflight had spoken so quietly, and con- 
I eluded in a manner so different from what I had expected, 
there was a deep interest in what was now going on. The 
particular reason why these red-men had come so far out 
of their way to visit Susquesus had not yet been revealed, 
as we all hoped would be the case ; but the profound rever- 
ence that these strangers, from the wilds of the far west, 
manifested for our aged friend, gave every assurance that 
j when we did learn it, there would be no reason for disap- 
j pointment. As usual, a pause succeeded the brief address 
! of the last speaker; after which, Susquesus once more 
I arose, and spoke. 

j “ My children,” he said, “ I am very old. Fifty autumns 
I ago, when the leaves fell, I thought it was time for me to 
pass on to the Happy Hunting-Grounds of my people, and 
be a redskin again. But my name was not called. I have 
been left alone here, in the midst of the pale-face fields, 
and houses, and villages, without a single being of my own 
colour and race to speak to. My head was almost grown 
white. Still, as years came on my head, the spirit turned 
more towards my youth. I began to forget the battles, and 
hunts, and journeys of middle life, and to think of the 
things seen when a young chief among the Onondagoes. 
My day is now a dream, in which I dream of the past. 
Why is the eye of Susquesus so far-seeing, after a hundred 
winters and more? Can any one tell? I think not. We 
do not understand the Great Spirit, and we do not under- 
stand his doings. Here I am, where I have been for half 
my days. That big wigwam is the wigwam of my best 
friends. Though their faces are pale, -and mine is red, our 
hearts have the same colour. I never forget them — no, 
not one of them. I see them all, from tfie oldest to the 
youngest. They seem to be of my blood. This comes 
from friendship, and many kindnesses. These are all the 
pale-faces I now see. Red-men stand before my eyes in 
all other places. My mind is with them. 

“ My children, you are young. Seventy winters are a 
great many for one of you. It is not so with me. Why 
I have been left standing alone here, near the hunting- 




THE REDSKINS. 


75 

grounds of our fathers, is more than I can say. So it is, 
and it is right. A withered hemlock is sometimes seen, 
standing by itself, in the fields of the pale-fiioes. I am 
such a tree. It is not cut down, because the wood is of no 
use, and even the squaws do not like it to cook by. When 
the winds blow, they seem to blow around it. It is tired of 
standing there alone, but it cannot fall. That tree wishes 
for the axe, but no man puts the axe to its root. Its time 
has not come. So it is with me — my time has not come. 

“ Children, my days now are dreams of my tribe. I see 
the wigwam of my father. It was the best in the village. 
He was a chief, and venison was never scarce in his lodge. 
I see him come off the war-path with many scalps on his 
pole. He had plenty of wampum, and wore many medals. 
The scalps on his pole were sometimes from red-men, some- 
times from pale-faces. He took them all himself. I see my 
mother, too. She loved me as the she-bear loves her cubs. 
I had brothers and sisters, and I see them, too. They 
laugh and play, and seem happy. There is the spring 
where we dipped up water in our gourds, and here is the 
hill where we lay waiting for the warriors to come in from 
the war-paths and the hunt. Everything looks pleasant to 
me. That was a village of the Onondagoes, my own people, 
and I loved them a hundred and twenty winters ago. I love 
them now, as if the time were but one winter and one sum- 
mer. The mind does not feel time. For fifty seasons I 
thought but little of my own people. My thoughts were on 
the hunt and the war-path, and on the quarrels of the pale- 
faces, with whom I lived. Now, I say again, I think most 
of the past, and of my young days. It is a great mystery 
why we can see things that are so far off so plainly’^, and 
cannot see things that are so near by. Still, it is so. 

“ Children, you ask why the red-men keep moving to- 
wards the setting sun, and why the pale-faces follow? You 
ask if the place where the sun sets will be ever reached, and 
if pale-men will go there to plough and to build, and to cut 
down the trees. He that has seen what has happened, 
ought to know' what 7vill happen again. I am very old, but 
I see nothing new. One day is like another. The same 
fruits come each summer, and the winters are alike. The 
bird builds in the same tree many times. 


7G 


THE REDSKINS 


“ My children, I have lived long among the pale-faces. 
Still, my heart is of the same colour as my face. I have 
never forgotten that I am a red-man ; never forgotten the 
Onondagoes. When I was young, beautiful woods covered 
these fields. Far and near the buck and the moose leaped 
mong the trees. Nothing but the hunter stopped them. It 
is all changed ! The plough has frightened away the deer. 
The moose will not stay near the sound of the church-bell. 
He does not know what it means. The deer goes first. 
The red-man keeps on his trail, and the pale-face is never 
far behind. So it has been since the big canoes of the 
stranger first came into our waters ; so it will be until 
another salt lake is reached beneath the setting sun. When 
that other lake is seen, the red-man must stop, and die in 
the open fields, where rum, and tobacco, and bread are 
plenty, or march on into the great salt lake of the west and 
be drowned. Why this is so I cannot tell. That it has been 
so, I know ; that it will be so, I believe. There is a rea- 
son for it ; none can tell what that reason is but the Great 
Spirit.” 

Susquesus had spoken calmly and clearly, and Many- 
tongues translated as he proceeded, sentence by sentence. 
So profound was the attention of the savage listeners that I 
heard their suppressed breathings. We white men are so 
occupied with ourselves, and our own passing concerns, look 
on all other races of human beings as so much our inferiors, 
that it is seldom we have time or inclination to reflect on the 
consequences of our own acts. Like the wheel that rolls 
along the highway, however, many is the inferior creature 
that we heedlessly crush in our path. Thus has it been with 
the red-man, and, as the Trackless had said, thus will it 
continue to be. He will be driven tathe salt lake of the far 
west, where he must plunge in ana be drowned, or turn and 
die in the midst of abundance. 

My uncle Ro knew more of the Indians, and of their ha- 
bits, than any one else of our party, unless it might be my 
grandmother. She, indeed, had seen a good deal of them 
in early life; and when quite a young girl, dwelling with 
I that uncle of her own who went by the sobriquet of the 
“ Chainbearer,” she had even dwelt in the woods, near the 
I tribe of Susquesus, and had often heard him named there 


THE REDSivINS. 


77 

>s an Indian in high repute, although he was even at that 
distant day an exile from his peop.e. When our old friend 
resumed his seat, she beckoned her son and myself fo the 
side of the carriage, and spoke to us on the subject of what 
had just been uttered, the translation of Manytongues hav- 
ing been loud enough to let the whole parly hear what lie 
said. 

“ This is not a visit of business, but one of ceremony 
only,” she said. “ To-morrow, probably, the real object of 
the strangers will be made known. All that has passed, as 
yet, has been complimentary, mixed with a little desire to 
hear the wisdom of the sage. The red-man is never in a * 
hurry, impatience being a failing that he is apt to impute to 
us women. Well, though we are females, we can wait. In 
the mean time, some of us can weep, as you see is particu- 
larly the case with Miss Mary W’^arren.” 

This was true enough ; the fine eyes of all four of the 
girls glistening with tears, while the cheeks of the person 
named were quite wet with those that had streamed down 
them. At this allusion to such an excess of sympathy, the 
young lady dried her eyes, and the colour heightened so 
much in her face, that I thought it best to avert my looks. 
While this by-play was going on, Prairiefire arose again, 
and concluded the proceedings of that preliminary visit, by 
making another short speech : 

“ Father,” he said, “ we thank you. What we have heard 
will not be forgotten. All red-men are afraid of that Great 
Salt Lake, under the setting sun, and in which some say it 
dips every night. What you have told us, will make us 
think more of it. We have come a great distance, and are 
tired. We will now go to our wigwam, and eat, and sleep. 
To-morrow, when the si4n- is up here,” pointing to a part 
of the heavens that would indicate something like nine 
o’clock^ “ we will come again, and open our ears. The 
Great Spirit who has spared you so long, will spare you 
until then, and we shall not forget to come. It is too plea- 
sant to us to be near you, for us to forget. Farewell.” 

The Indians now rose in a body, and stood regarding 
Susquesus fully a minute, in profound silence, when they 
^led off at a quick pace, and followed their leader towards 
their quarters for the night. As the train noiselessly wound 


THE REDS KINS 


78 

its way from before him, a shade passed athwart the dark 
countenance of the Trackless, and he smiled no more that 
day. 

All this tinae the negro, the contemporary of the Indian, 
kept muttering his discontent at seeing so many redskins in 
his presence, unheeded and indeed unheard by his friend. 

“ What you do wid dem Injin,” he growled, as the party 
disappeared. “ No good ebber come of sich as dem. How 
many time dey work debbletry in a wood, and you and I 
not werry far off, Sus. How ole you got, redskin ; and 
forgetful ! Nobody can hold out wid colour’ man. Gosh ! 
I do b’lieve I lib for ebber, sometime ! It won’erful to think 
of, how long I stay on dis werry ’arth !” 

Such exclamations were not uncommon with the aged 
Jaaf, and no one noted them. He did not seem to expect 
any answer himself, nor did any one appear to deem it at 
all necessary to make one. As for the Trackless, he arose 
with a saddened countenance, and moved into his hut like 
one who wished to be left alone with his thoughts. My 
grandmother ordered the carriage to move on, and the rest 
of us returned to the house on foot. 


CHAPTER VI. 


** With all thy rural echoes come, 

Sweet comrade of the rosy day, 

Wafting the wild bee’s gentle hum, 

Or cuckoo’s plaintive roundelay. 

Campbell. 

That night was passed under my own roof, in the family 
circle. Although my presence on the estate was now gene- 
rally known, to all who were interested in it, I cannot say 
that I thought much of the anti-renters, or of any risks in- 
curred by the discovery. The craven spirit manifested by 
the ‘ Injins’ in presence of the Indians, the assumed before 
the real, had not a tendency to awaken much respect for the 
disaffected, and quite likely disposed me to be more indiffer- 


THE REDSKINS. 


79 

eiit to their proceedings, than I might otherwise have been. 
At_^all events, I was happy with Patt, and Mary, and my 
uncle’s wards, and did not give the disorganizers a thought, 1 
until quite at the close of the evening. The manner in which 1 
John went about to barricade the doors and windows, after | 
the ladies had retired, struck me unpleasantly, however, and i 
it did not fail to produce the same effect on my uncle. This | 
seemingly important duty was done, when my faithful mai- I 
tre-dliotel, for such, in a measure, was the Englishman’s | 
station, came to me, and my uncle, who were waiting for | 
his appearance in the library, armed like Robirrson Crusoe. j 
He brought us each a revolving pistol, and a rifle, with a - 
proper’ allowance of ammunition. 1 

“ Missus,” so John persevered in calling my grandmothei, ; 
though it was very unlike an English servant to do so, after | 
he had been in the country three months — “ Missus as hor- | 
dered harms to be laid in, in quantities, Mr. Hugh, and f 

hall of us has our rifles and pistols, just like these. She | 

keeps some for herself and Miss Martha, in her own room j 
still, but as she supposes you can make better use of these | 

than the maids, I had her orders to bring them down out of j 

the maids’ room, and hoffer them to yourselves, gentlemen. | 
They are hall loaded, and smart weapons be they.” 

“ Surely there has been no occasion as yet, for using 
such things as these!” exclaimed my uncle. 

“ One doesn’t know, Mr. Roger, when the hinimy may 
come. We have had only three alarms since the ladies ar- 
rived, and most luckily no blood was shed ; though we fired 
at the hinimy, and the hinimy fired at us. When I says 
no blood was spilt, I should add, on our side ; for there was 
no way to know how much the anti’s suffered, and they 
hadn’t good stone walls to cover them, as we ’ad on our side.” 

“ Gracious Providence I I had no notion of this ! Hugh, | 

the country is in a worse state than I had supposed, and | 

we ought not to leave the ladies here an hour after to- j 

morrow !” _ t 

As the ladies who came within my uncle’s category, did 
not include Mary Warren, I did not take exactly the same 
view of the subject as he did himself. Nothing further was t 

said on the subject, however; and shortly after each shouR j 

dered his rifle, and retired to his own room. 


THE REDSKINS. 


80 

It was past midnight when I reached my apartment, but 
I felt no inclination for sleep. That had been an important 
day to me, one full of excitement, and I was still too much 
under the influence of its circumstances to think of my bed. 
There was soon a profound silence in the house, the closing j 
of doors and the sound of footsteps having ceased, and I went ! 
to a window, to gaze on the scene without. There was a 
three-quarters’ moon, which gave light enough to render all 
the nearer objects of the landscape distinctly visible. The 
view had nothing remarkable in it, but it was always rural 
and pretty. The little river, and the broad meadows, were ; 
not to be seen from my side of the house, which commanded 
the carriage road that wound through the lawn — the farm- 
house — the distant church — the neat and pretty rectory — 
the dwelling of Mary, and a long reach of farms, that lay 
along the valley, and on the broad breast of the rising 
ground to the westward. 

Everything, far and near, seemed buried in the quiet of 
deep night. Even the cattle in the fields had lain down to 
sleep; for, like man, they love to follow the law of nature, 
and divide the hours by light and darkness. John had placed 
the candles in my dressing-room, and closed the inner shut- 
ters ; but I had taken a seat by a window of the bed-room, 
and sat in no other light but that which came from the moon, 
which was now near setting. I might have been ruminating 
on the events of the day half an hour or more, when I fan- 
cied some object was in motion on a path that’ led towards i 
the village, but which was quite distinct from the ordinary | 
highway. This path was private, indeed, running fully a 1 
mile through my own farm and grounds, bounded lor a con- | 
siderable distance by high fences on each side of it, and run- 
ning among the copses and thickets of the lawn, as soon as I 
it emerged from the fields. It had been made in order to I 
enable my grandfather to ride to his fields, uninterrupted by j 
gates or bars; and issuing into the bit of forest already de- ! 
scribed, it passed through that by a short cut, and enabled i 
us to reach the hamlet by a road that saved nearly a mile j 
in the whole distance. This path was often used by those I 
who left the Nest, or who came to it, in the saddle, but | 
rarely by any but those who belonged to the family. Though I 
old as the place itself, it was little known by others not suit 


THE REDSKINS. 


8i 


ing the general taste for publicity, there not being a solitary 
dwelling on it between the Nest House itself and the point 
where it emerged into the highway, beyond the wood, which 
was quite near to the village. 

I could see the whole line of this private path, with the 
exception, here and there, of intervals that were hid by trees 
and thickets, from the point where it terminated until it en- 
tered the wood. There could be no mistake. Late as was 
the hour, some one mounted was galloping along that path, 
winding his or her way among the rails of the fences ; now 
plainly visible, then lost to view. I had caught a glimpse 
of this phantom, (for at that unusual hour, and by that delu- 
sive light, it required no great effort of the imagination thus 
to fancy the equestrian,) just as it emerged from the wood, 
and could not well be mistaken as to the accuracy of my 
discovery. The path led through a pretty wooded ravine 
in the lawn, and no sooner did 1 lose sight of this strange 
object than I turned my eyes eagerly to the spot where it 
ought to reappear, on emerging from its cover. 

The path lay in shadow for twenty rods on quitting the 
ravine, after which it wound across the lawn to the door, 
for about twice that distance, in full moonlight. At the ter- 
mination of the shadow there was a noble oak, which stood 
alone, and beneath its wide branches was a seat much fre- 
quented by the ladies in the heats of summer. My eye kept 
moving from this point, where the light became strong, to 
that where the path issued from the ravine. At the latter 
it was just possible to distinguish a moving object, and, sure 
enough, there I got my next view of the person I was watch- 
ing. The horse came up the ascent on a gallop — ^a pace 
that was continued until its rider drew the rein beneath the 
oak. Here, to my surprise, a female sprang from the sad- 
dle with great alacrity, and secured her steed within the 
shadow of the tree. This was no sooner done than she 
moved on towards the house, in much apparent haste. Fear- 
ful of disturbing the fimily, I now left my room on tiptoe, 
and without a candle, the light of the moon penetrating the 
passages in sufficient quantity to serve my purpose, descend- 
ing as fast as possible to the lower floor. Swift and prompt 
as had been rny own movement, it had been anticipated by 
another. To my great surprise, on reaching the little side- 


i 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


82 


door to which the path led, and where the ladies had long 
been accustomed to get into the saddle, when they used it, 

I found a female figure, with her hand on the massive lock, 
as if ready to turn its key at some expected summons. To 
my great astonishment, on drawing nearer, I recognised, by 
the faint light that penetrated through a littl-e window over 
the door, the person of Mary Warren ! 

I certainly started at this unexpected discovery, but, if she- 
who caused that start in me submitted to any similar emo- 
tion, I did not discover it. She may have heard my step, 
however, descending the stairs, and have been prepared for 


the meeting. 

“ You have seen her, too, have you, Mr. Littlepage !” 
exclaimed Mary, though she used the precaution to speak in 
a suppressed tone. “ What can have brought her here at 
this late hour?” 

“You know who it is, then. Miss Warren?” I answered, 
feeling an indescribable pleasure succeed my surprise, as 1 
remembered the dear girl, who was fully dressed, just as 
she had left the drawing-room an hour before, must have 
been gazing out upon the moonlight view as well as myself ; 
a species of romance that proved something like a similarity 
of tastes, if not a secret sympathy between us. 

“ Certainly,” returned Mary, steadily. “ I cannot well 
be mistaken in the person, I think. It is Opportunity New- 
come.” 

“ My hand was on -the key, and I turned it in the lock. 
A bar remained, and this T also removed, when we opened 
. the door. Sure enough, there came the person just named, 
within ten feet of the steps, which she doubtless intended to 
ascend. She manifested surprise on ascertaining who were 
her porters, but hastened into the house, looking anxiously 
behind her, as if distrustful of pursuit or observation. I led 
the way to the library, lighted its lamp, and then turned to 
my two silent companions, looking a request for expla- 
nation. 

Opportunity was a young woman, in her twenty-sixth 
year, and was not without considerable personal charms, 
j The exercise and excitement through which she had just 
gone had heightened the colour in her cheeks, and rendered 
her appearance unusually ple.asing. Nevertheless, Oppor- 


I 


THEREDSKINS, 83 

j tunity was not a woman to awaken anything like the pas- 
I sion of love in me, though I had long been aware such was 
I her purpose. I suspected that her. present business was 
I connected with this scheme, I will own, and was prepared 
I to listen to her communication with distrust. As for Oppor 
1 tunity herself, she hesitated about making her disclosures 
I and the very first words she uttered were anything but deli« 
cate or feminine. 

I “ Well, I declare !” exclaimed Opportunity, “ I did not j 
i expect to find you two alone at this time of night !” 

! I could have given her tongue a twitch to cure it of its 
propensity to speak evil, but concern for Mary Warren, in- 
I duced me to turn anxiously towards her. Never did the 
I steady self-possession of perfect innocence better assert itself 
j than in the dear girl at this rude assault ; the innocence 
1 which can leave no latent intention, or wish, to alarm the 
j feelings. 

I “ We had all retired,” answered the pure-minded girl, 

I “ and everybody on my side of the house is in bed and | 

' asleep, I believe ; but I did not feel any drowsiness, and was 
i sitting at a window, looking out upon the view this lovely 
I moonlight, when I saw you ride out of the woods, and follow 
I Jie lane. As you came up to the oak I knew who it was, 

I Opportunity, and ran down to admit you ; for I was certain | 

j something extraordinary must bring you here at this late | 

! hour.” I 

“ Oh ! nothing extraordinary, at all !” cried Miss Oppor j 
tunity, in a careless way. “ I love moonlight as well as | 

yourself, Mary, and am a desperate horsewoman, as you j 

j know. I thought it would be romantic to gallop over to the j 

Nest, and go back between one and two in the morning. i 
j Nothing more, I can assure you.” | 

I The coolness with which this was said amazed me not a 
j little, though I was not so silly as to believe a syllable of it. 

Opportunity had a great deal of vulgar sentimentalism 
I about her, it is true — such as some girls are apt to mistake 
! for refinement ; but she was not quite so bad as to travel 
I that lane, at midnight, and alone, without some special 
! object. It occurred to me that this object might be con- 

' nected with her brother, and that she would naturally wish 

I to make her communications privately. We had all taken 


THE REDSKINS. 


84 

seats at a table which occupied the centre of the room, Mar;^ 
and myself quite near each other, and Opportunity at a dis- 
tant angle. I wrote on a slip of paper a short request for 
Mary to leave me alone with our visiter, and laid it under 
her eyes, without exciting Opportunity’s suspicion ; talking 
to her, the whole time, about the night, and the weather, 
and her ride. While we were thus engaged. Miss Warren 
rose, and quietly glided out of the room. So silently was 
this done, that I do not believe my remaining companion 
was conscious of it at the moment. 

“You have driven Mary Warren away, Miss Opportu- 
nity,” I remarked, “ by the hint about our being alone to- 
1 gether.” 

I “ Lord ! there’s no great harm in that ! I am used to 
! being alone with gentlemen, and think nothing of it. But, 
i are we really alone, Mr. Hugh, and quite by ourselves?” 

I “Quite, as you see. Our two selves and Mary Warren | 

I I believe to be the only persons in the house, out of our ; 

I beds. She has left us, a little hurt, perhaps, and we are j 

; quite alone.” | 

I “Oh! As for Mary Warren’s feelings, I don’t mind 
j them much, Mr. Hugh. She’s a good critter” — yes, this 

I elegant young lady actually used that extraordinary word 

j — “and as forgiving as religion. Besides, she ’s only the ! 

I episcopal clergyman’s daughter; and, take your family ! 

i away, that ’s a denomination that would not stand long at j 

i Ravensnest, I can tell you.” ' j 

i “ I am very glad, then, my family is not away, for it is | 
a denomination I both honour and love. So long as the 
grasping and innovating spirit of the times leaves the Lit 
tlepages anything, a fair portion of their means shall be 
given to support that congregation. As for Miss Warren, 

I am pleased to hear that her temperament is so forgiving.” 

“ I know that well, and did not speak in the hope of 
- making any change in your views, Mr. Hugh. Mary War- j 
ren, however, will not think much of my remark to-morrow , ! 

I do not believe she thought half as much about it to-night I 
as I sheuld have done, had it been made to me.” ! 

I fancy this was quite true; Mary Warren having lis- | 
tened to the insinuation as the guileless and innocent hear 
innuendos that bring no consciousness with them, while Op- 


1 


THEREDSKINS. 85 

portunity’s spirit would have been very apt to buckle on the 
armour which practice had rendered well-ntling. 

“ You have not taken this long ride merely to admire the 
moon, Miss Opportunity,” I now carelessly remarked, will- 
ing to bring things to a head. “If you would favour me 
with its real object, I should be pleased to learn it.” 

“ What if Mary should be standing at the keyhole, lis- 
tening?” said this elegant ‘critter,’ with the suspicion of a 
vulgar mind. “ I wouldn’t have her hear what I ’ve got to 
tell you, for a mint of money.” 

“ 1 do not think there is much danger of that,” I an- 
swered, rising notwithstanding, and throwing open the door. 
“ Y"ou perceive there is no one here, and we can converse 
in safety.” 

Opportunity was not so easily satisfied. Of a gossiping, 
craving disposition herself, in all things that pertain to curi- 
osity, it was not easy for lier to imagine another could be 
less guided by that feeling than herself. Rising, therefore, 
she went on tiptoe to the passage, and examined it for 
herself. Satisfied, at length, that we were not watched, 
she returned to the room, closed the door softly, motioned 
for me to be seated, placed herself quite near me, and then 
appeared disposed to proceed to business. 

“ This has been a dreadful day, Mr. Hugh,” the young 
woman now commenced, actually looking sorrowful, as [ 
make little doubt she really felt. “ Who could have thought 
that the street-musician was you, and that old German ped- 
lar of watches, Mr. Roger! 1 declare, the world seems to 
be getting upside-down, and folks don’t know when they’re 
in their right places?” 

“it was a foolish adventure, perhaps; but it has let us 
into some most important secrets.” 

“That’s just the difficulty. I defend you all I can, 
and tell my brothers that you’ve not done anything they 
would n’t do in a minute, if only half a farm depended on it, 
while, in your case, it may be more than a hundred.” 

“Your brothers then complain of my having appeared 
among the anti-renters, in disguise?” 

“They do, desperately, Mr. Hugh, and seem quite pul 
out about it. They say it was ungenerous to come in that 
tvay into your own country, and steal their secrets from 

VoL. II. — 8 


THE R E DSKINS. 


8G 

them ! I say all I can in your favour, but words wont pas3 
for much with men in such a taking. You know, Mr. 
Hugh, I’ve always been your friend, even from our childish 
days, having got myself into more than one scrape to get 
you out of them.” 

As Opportunity made this declaration, one a little loose 
as to facts., by the way, she sighed gently, dropped her eyes, 
and looked as conscious and confused as I believe it was at 
all in her nature to appear. It was not my cue to betray un- 
due bashfulness at such a moment, and as for any scruples 
on the subject of misleading a confiding heart, I should as 
soon have thought of feeding an anaconda or a boa con- 
strictor with angle-worms. I took the young lady’s hand, 
therefore, squeezed it with as sentimental a pressure as I 
knew how to use, and looked green enough about the eyes, 
I dare say. 

“You are only too good. Opportunity,” I answered. 
“ Yes, I have ever relied on you as a friend, and have never 
doubted you would defend me, when I was not present to 
defend myself.” 

Here I released the hand, a little apprehensive I might 
have the young lady sobbing on my shoulder, unless some 
little moderation were observed. Opportunity manifested a 
reluctance to let go her hold, but what could a young woman 
do, when the gentleman himself exhibited so much discre- 
tion ? 

“ Yes, Seneky, in particular, is in a dreadful taking,” she 
resumed, “ and to pacify him, I consented to ride over my- 
self, at this time of night, to let you know what is threat- 
ened.” 

“ That is most kind of you. Opportunity ; and, as it is so 
late, had you not better tell your story at once, and then go 
to a room and rest yourself, after so sharp a ride?” 

“ Tell my tale I will, for it ’s high time you heard it ; but, 
as for rest, I must jump on my horse and gallop back the 
moment the moon sets ; sleep I must in my own bed this 
night. Of course you and Mary Warren will both be silent 
as to my visit, since it has been made for your good.” 

I promised for myself and Mary, and then pressed my 
companion to delay no longer in imparting the information 
she had ridden so far to bring. The story was soon told 


THE REDSKINS. 


87 

I Rnd proved to be sufficiently alarming. One portion of the 
facts I got directly from Opportunity herself, wlule another 
i has been subsequently gleaned from various sources, all 
! being certain. The particular circumstances were these : — 
j When Seneca followed the band of “ Injins” and his co- 
anti-renters, in their precipitate retreat on the >amlet, his 
revelations produced a general consternation. It then be- 
came known that the young Paris spendthrift was on his 
i own estate, that he had actually been among the disaffected 
i that day, had learned many of their secrets, and had proba- 
bly made black marks against certain of the tenants, whoso 
leases were nearly expired. Bad as this was, of itself, it 
was not the worst of the matter. Nothing was more certain 
I than the fact that this young landlord knew a few of those 
who had committed felony, and might have sundry highly 
probable suspicions as to others. The guilty lay at his 
mercy, as a matter of course ; and there was a sufficiency 
of common sense left. among these conspirators, to under- 
stand that a man, who must feel that attempts were making 
I to rob him of his estate, would be very likely to turn the 
I tables on his assailants, did an occasion offer. When men 
I embark in an undertaking as innately nefarious as that of 
I anti-rentism certainly is, when it is stripped of its pretensions 
I and stands in its naked deformity, they are not apt to stop 
i at trifles. To this desperate character of its mischief, the 
i country owes the general depression of truth that has ac- 
j cornpanied its career, its false and dangerous principles, its 
I confusion between right and w'rong, and finally its murders, 
j It has been the miserable prerogative of demagogues alone, 

I to defend its career and its demoralization. Thus has it hap- 
pened, that the country has seen the same quasi legislators — 
legislators, by the vote of a party and the courtesy of the 
country, if by no other tenure — supporting, with an air of 
high pretension, the very doubtful policy of attempting to 
make men moral by statute law, on the one side, while 
they go the full length of these property-depredators, on the 
other! In such a state of society, it is not surprising that 
any expedient should be adopted to intimidate and bully me 
nto silence. It was consequently determined, in a conclave 
of the chief*, that a complaint should be made against my 
uncle and myself, before an anti-rent justice of, the peace. 


THE REDSKINS 


88 



for felony under the recent statute, in appearing “ diguised 
and armed,” as a means of preventing our complaints 
against the real offenders. It is true, we were not in masks ; 
but our disguises, nevertheless, were so effectual as possibly 
to meet the contingency contemplated by the law, had we 
been armed. As to weapons, however, we had been totally 
and intentionally without anything of the sort; but oaths 
cost villains, like those engaged* in this plot, very little. 
Those oaths had been taken, and warrants were actually 
signed by the magistrate, of which the service was suspended 
at Seneca’s solicitation, merely to enable the last to egect 
a compromise. It was not thought sufficient, however, to 
menace my uncle and myself with a prosecution of this 
nature; intimidation of another sort was to be put in requi- 
sition, to enforce the dread of the legal proceedings ; a mea- 
sure which should let us see that our assailants were in 
downright earnest. Opportunity had ascertained that some- 
thing serious was to be attempted, and she believed that very 
ni^it, though what it was precisely was more than she knew ; 
or, knowing, was willing to communicate. 

The object of this late visit, then, was to make terms for 
her brother, or brothers ; to apprize me of some unknown 
but pressing danger, and to obtain all that influence in my 
breast that might fairly be anticipated from services so ma- 
terial. Beyond a question, I was fortunate in having such 
a friend in the enemy’s camp, though past experience had 
taught me to be wary how I trusted my miserable and sensi- 
tive heart within the meshes of a net that had been so often 
cast. 

“ I am very sensible of the importance of your services, 
Miss Opportunity,” I said, when the voluble young lady had 
told her talc, “ and shall not fail to bear it in mind. As for 
making any direct arrangement with your brother Seneca, 
that is out of the question, since it would be compromising 
felony, and subject me to punishment ; but I can be passive, 
if I see fit, and your wishes will have great weight with me. i 
The attempt to arrest my uncle and myself, sliould it ever i 
be made, will only. subject iis instigators to action for maii- ; 
cions prosecutions, and gives me no concern* It is v>.ry | 
doubtful how far we were disguised, in the sense of the 
statute, and it is certain we were not armed, in any 1 


J 


THE REDSKINS. 


89 


j sense. 

I lliil— 


Without perjury, therefore, such a prosecution must 


“Folks take desperate oaths in anti-rent times !” inter- 
rupted Opportunity, with a significant look. 

“ I am quite aware of that. Human testimony, at the 
best, is very frail, and often to be distrusted ; but in seasons 
of excitement, and passion, and cupidity, it is common to 
find it corrupt. The most material thing, at present, is to 
know precisely the nature of the evil they meditate against 
us.” 


Opportunity’s eye did not turn away, as mine was fast- 
ened on her while she answered this question, but retained 
all the steadiness of sincerity. 

“ 1. wish I could tell you, Mr. Hugh,” she said; “but I 
can say no more than I have. Some injury will be attempted 
! this night, I feel certain ; but what that injury will be, is 

j more than I know myselfi I must now go home; for the 

moon will be nearly down, and it would never do for me to 
be leen by any of the antis. The little 1 have said in favour 
of the Littlepages has made me enemies, as it is ; but I never 
should be forgiven, was this ride to be known.” 

Opportunity now rose, and smiling on me, as any other 
rover might be supposed to fire a parting broadside, in order 
to render the recollection of her presence as memorable as 
possible, she hurried away, I accompanied her to the oak, 
as a matter of course, and assisted her into her saddle. Sun- 
dry little passages of country coquetry occurred during these 
movements, and the young lady manifested a reluctance to 
depart, even when all was ready, though she was in so great a 
hurry. Her game was certainly as desperate as that of the 
anti-renters themselves, but it was a game she was deter- 
mined to play out. The moon was not yet quite down, and 
that circumstance served as a pretence for delay, while I 
fancied that she might still have something in reserve to 
communicate. 

“ This has been so kind in you, dear Opportunity,” I 
said, laying my hand gently on the one of hers which held 
the bridle — “so like old times — so like yourself, indeed — • 
that I scarce know how to thank you. But we shall live to 
have old-fashioned times again, when the former communi- 
talions can be opened among us. Those were happy days, 
8 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


90 

when vve all went galloping over the hills together ; mere 
boys and girls, it is true, but delighted boys and girls I hope 
you will allow.” 

“ That they was” — Opportunity’s education and graces 
did not extend to good grammar, in her ordinary discourse, 
which many persons among us seem to fancy is anti-repub- 
lican — “ That they was ! And I should like to live ’em over 
again. Never mind, Hugh ; you ’ll live to put down these 
people, and then you ’ll settle and marry. You mean to 
marry, of course?” 

This was a pretty plain demonstration ; but I was used to 
it, as what young man of fortune is not ? — and a danger 
known is a danger avoided. I pressed the hand I held gen- 
tly, relinquished it, and then observed, in a somewhat dis- 
appointed tone — 

“Well, I ought not to ask again, what is the particular 
injury I am to expect to-night. A brother is nearer than a 
friend, I know ; and I can appreciate your difficulties.” 

Opportunity had actually given the spirited beast she 
rode the rein, and was on the point of galloping off, when 
these last words touched her heart. Leaning forward, and 
bending her head down, so as to bring our faces within a 
foot of each other, she said, in a low voice — 

“ Fire is a good servant, but a hard master. A tea-kettle 
of water thrown on it, at first, would have put out the last 
great conflagration in York.” 

These w'ords were no sooner uttered than the bold young 
woman struck her horse a smart blow, and away she went 
galloping over the turf with an almost noiseless hoof. I 
watched her for a moment, and saw her descend into the 
ravine ; when, left quite alone, there was abundant opportu- 
nity for reflection, though no longer any Opportunity to 
look at. 

“ Fire !” — That was an ominous word. It is the instru- 
ment of the low villain, and is an injury against which it is 
difficult, indeed, to guard. It had been used in these anti-rent 
troubles, though less, perhaps, than would have been the 
case in almost any other coqntry; the institutions of this, 
even if they have introduced so many false and exaggerated | 
notions of liberty, having had a most beneficial effect in 
essening some of the other evils of humanity. Still, fire 


THE REDSKINS. 


Vad been resorted to, and the term of ‘ barn-burner’ had got 
to be common among us; far more common, I rejoice to 
say, than the practice which gave it birth. Nevertheless, 
it was clearly of the last importance to certain persons at 
Ravensnest to frighten me from complaining, since their 
crimes could only lead them to the State’s prison, were jus- 
tice done. I determined, therefore, not to lay my head on 
a pillow that night, until assured that the danger was past. 

The moon had now set, but the stars shed their twinkling 
rays on the dusky landscape. I was not sorry for the 
change, as it enabled me to move about with less risk of 
being seen. The first thing was to seek some auxiliaries to 
j aid me in w’atching, and I at once decided to look for them 
among my guests, the Indians. If “ fire will fight fire,” 

' Indian’ ought to be a match for ‘ Injin’ any day. There 
is just the difference between these two classes of men, that 
their names would imply. The one is natural, dignified, 
polished in his way — nay, gentleman-like ; while the other 
is a sneaking scoundrel, and as vulgar as his own appella- 
tion. No one would think of calling these last masquerad- 
ing rogues “ Indians by common consent, even the most 
particular purist in language terms them “ Injins.” “ /Z 3/ a 
j chapeau et chapeau , and there are “ Indian and Injin.” 

Without returning to the house, I took my way at once 
towards the quarters of my red guests. Familiar with every 
object around me, I kept so much within the shadows, and 
j moved across the lawn and fields by a route so hidden, that 
j there was not much risk of my being seen, even had there 

j been enemies on the look-out. The distance was not great, 

and I soon stood at the foot of the little knoll on which the 
old farm-house stood, sheltered in a manner by a dark row 
of aged currants, which lined the bottom of an old and half- 
deserted garden. Here I paused to look about me, and to 
reflect a moment, before I proceeded any further. 

There stood the good, old, substantial residence of my 
fathers, in shadowy outline, looming large and massive in its 
form and aspect. It might be fired, certainly, but not with 
much facility, on its exterior. With the exception of its 
roof, its piazza, and its outside-doors, little wood was exposed 
to an incendiary without; and a slight degree of watchful- 
ness might suffice against such a danger. Then the law 

1 —I 


92 THEREDSKINS. 

punished arson of an inhabited dwelling with death, as it 
should do, and your sneaking scoundrels seldom brave such 
a penalty in this country. Much is said about the impo- 
lency of the punishment of the gallows, but no man can tell 
how many thousand times it has stayed the hand and caused 
the heart to quail. Until some one can appear among us, 
who is' able to reveal this important secret, it is idle to talk 
about the few cases in which it is known that the risk of 
death has been insufficient to prevent crime. One thing we 
all know ; other punishments exist, and crime is perpetrated 
directly in their face, daily and hourly; and I cannot see 
why such a circumstance should not be just as much of an 
argument against the punishment of the penitentiary, as 
against punishment by the gallows. For one, I am clearly 
for keeping in existence the knowledge that there is a power 
in the country, potent to sweep away the offender, when 
cases of sufficient gravity occur to render the warning 
wholesome. 


CHAPTER VII. 

** O, time and death ! with certain pace. 

Though still unequal, hurrying on, 

O’erturning, in your awful race, 

The cot, the palace, and the throne ! 

« Not always in the storm of war, 

Nor by the pestilence that sweeps 
From the plague-smitten realms afar. 

Beyond the old and solemn deeps.” 

Sawds. 

Besides the house with its walls of stone, however, there 
were numerous out-buildings. The carriage-house, stables, 
and home-barn, were all of stone also ; but a brand thrown 
into a hay-mow would easily produce a conflagration. 
The barns, hay-ricks, &c., on the flats, and near the dwell- 
ing of Miller, were all of wood, according to the custom of 
the country, and it was not death to set fire to a barn. The 


THE REDSKINS. 


93 

‘ disguised and armed’ who should commit this last offence, 
would incur no other risk than that which had already been 
ncurred in carrying out his desperate plans. I thought of 
hese things for a moment, when I opened a passage through 
the currant-bushes, intending to pass by a breach in the de- 
cayed fence into the garden, and thus by a private way to 
the house. To my astonishment, and in a slight degree to 
my alarm, a man stood before me the instant I emerged 
from the thicket. 

“ Who be — where go — what want 1” demanded one of the 
' .real red-skins, significantly ; this being a sentinel of the 
party whose vigilance even my guarded approach had not 
eluded. 

" 1 told him who I was, and that I came to seek the inter- 
preter, Manytongues. No sooner was I recognised, than my 
red friend offered me his hand to shake, American fashion, 
and seemed satisfied. He asked no question, manifested no 
curiosity at this visit at an hour so unusual, and took it all 
as one in ordinary life would receive a call in a morning 
between the permitted hours of twelve and three. Something 
had brought me there, he must have known ; but, what that 
something was appeared to give him no concern. This man 
accompanied me to the house, and pointed to the spot where 
I should find the person I sought, snoring on his well-shaken 
bundles of straw. 

At the first touch of my finger, Manytongues awoke, and 
stood erect. He recognised me in an instant, dark as was 
the room, and touching my arm as a signal to follow, led 
the way into the open air. After moving out of ear-shot, he 
stopped and proceeded to business himself, like one accus- 
tomed to such interruptions. 

“Anything stirring to-night?” demanded' this frontier- 
man, with the coolness of one who was ever ready. “ Am 
I to call ray red-skins ,* or is it only a notice that is to be 
given ?” 

“ Of that you shall judge for yourself. You doubtless 
know the condition of this part of the country, and the trou- 
bles that exist on the subject of the rents paid for the use of 
the farms. What you saw to-day is a specimen of the 
scenes that are now constantly acted among us.” 

“ Colonel, I can’t say I do rightly understand the state of 



94 THE REDSKINS. 

things down here-a-way,” drawled out the interpreter, aftei 
yawning like a hound, and giving me the most favourite title 
of the frontiers. “It seems to be neither one thing nor 
t’other ; nuther tomahawk nor law. I can understand both 
of them, but this half-and-half sort of thing bothers me, and 
puts me out. You ought to have law, or you hadn’t ought ; 
but what you have should be stuck to.” 

“ You mean that you do not find this part of the country 
either civilized or savage. Not submitting to the laws, nor 
yet permitting the natural appeal to force?” 

“Something of that sort. The agent told me, when I 
came on with this party of red-skins, that I was cornin’ down 
into a quarter of the country where there was justices of the 
peace, and that no man, red or pale, could or should right 
himself. So we’ve all on us indivour’d to go by that rule; 
and I can qualify tl)at not a critter has been shot or scalped 
since w'e crossed the Mississippi. Some sich law was neces- 
sary among us, as we came from different and hostile tribes, 
and nothing would be easier than to breed a quarrel among 
ourselves, if a body was so disposed. * But, I must say, that 
I’m not only disapp’inted myself, but most of my chiefs bo 
dreadfully disapp’inted likewise.” 

“ In what particular have you been most disappointed ?” 

“ In many matters. The first thing that set me a-think- 
in’ was to hear folks read them new^spapers. The way men 
talk of each other, in them things, is wonderful, and to me 
it’s a surprise any’s left, at the end of the year, to begin the 
same game the next. Why, Colonel Littlepage— 

“I am no colonel — not even an ensign — you must be 
confounding me with some other of my family.” 

“You ovght to be, sir, and I shall not do you the injus- 
tice to call you by any lower title. I’ve known gentlemen 
of not one-quarter your pretensions tarmed gin’rals, out 
West. I’ve hunted on the p-rer-ies these twenty-five years, 
and have now crossed the Upper Lakes six times, and know 
what is due to a gentleman as well as any man. And so, 
as I was sayin’. Colonel Littlepage, was men to talk of each 
other out on the prer-ies as they pi'int of each other down 
here among the meetin-’uses, scalps would be so plenty as 
to fall considerable in valie. I’m not at all spiteful, but my 
^eelin’s has been r’iled at only just hearirC^em things read; 


THE REDSKINS. 


95 

for, as for reading myself, that's a thing I never conde- 
scended to. This somewhat prepared me for findin’ things 
different as I got deeper into the settlements, and I’ve not 
been disapp’inted so far as them expectations went — it’s the 
old idee that’s been crossed.” 

“ I am not astonished to hear this, and agree with you 
entirely in thinking that the nations which can withstand a 
press of which the general character is as degraded as that 
of this country, must be composed of beings of a higher 
order than man. But, to come to business; you must have 
some notions of these mock savages, and of the people called 
anti-renters ?” 

“ Sort o’, and sort o’ not. I can’t understand when a 
man has agreed to pay rent, why he should not pay it. A 
bargain is a bargain, and the word of a gentleman is as 
good as his bond.” 

“ These opinions would surprise some among us, a few 
legislators included. They appear to think that the moral 
test of every engagement is w'hether the parlies like it or 
not.” 

“ One word, if you please. Colonel. Do they give in as 
much to complaints of the owners of the sile as to the com- 
plaints of them that hire the land in order to work it?” 

“ Not at all. The complaints of the landlords would not 
find a single sympathetic chord in the breast of the softest 
nearted politician in America, let them be evei so well- 
founded. Surely, you, who are a rover on the prairies, can 
have no great respect for land titles ?” 

“ The prer-ie is the prer-ie. Colonel, and men live and 
act by prer-ie law on prer-ie ground. But right is right, too. 
Colonel, as well as prer-ie is prer-ie; and I like to see it 
per\ail. I do not think you will find a red-skin among all 
the chiefs who are asleep under that roof who will not give 
his voice ag in flying from the tarms of a solemn bargain. 
A man must be well steeped in the ways of the law, I 
should judge, to bring his mind to such an act.” 

“ Do these red-men, then, know anything of the nature 
of the difficulties that exist here?” 

“ They have heard on ’em, and have talked a good deal 
together on the subject. It’s opposj/te to the very natur’ of 
Rn Indian, like, to agree to one thing, and to do another. 


THE REDSKINS. 


96 

But, Ijere is a Chippewa, who is on the look-out. I will ask 
him a question, and you shall hear his answer.” 

Manytongues now spoke to the sentinel, who was saunter- 
ing near. After a brief exchange of questions and answers 
in the tongue of the latter, the interpreter communicated what 
had passed. 

“This Chippewa has heard somewhere,” he said, “that 
there are folks in this part of the world who get into wig- 
wams, by agreeing to pay rent for them, and, when once in 
possession, they want to fly from their agreements, and 
make the man they got it from prove his right to it. Js that 
true. Colonel ?” 

“ It is true, out of all question, and not only do the tenants 
wish to enact this treachery, but they have found others, 
that call themselves legislators, who are willing to sustain 
them in the fraud. It is much as if you should borrow, or 
hire a rifle for a day’s sporting, and when the man who let 
you have it, came to claim it at night, you should tell him 
to'^rove he was the right owner.” 

“ What’s that to me ? I got the rifle of him ; have no right 
but such as he had ; and am bound to stand by my bargain. 
No, no. Colonel ; not a redskin on the prer-ies but would 
revolutionize at that! But, what may have brought you 
here, at this lime o’ night? Them that sleep in beds, don’t 
like to quit them ’till mornin’ comes to tell ’em to rise.” 

I then gave Manytongues an account of the visit I had 
received, without mentioning the name of Opportunity, how- 
ever, and related the nature of the warning I had heard. 
The interpreter was, in no wise, disturbed at this prospect 
of a collision with the Injins, against whom he had a grudge, 
not only on account of the little affair of the preceding day, 
but mainly in consequence of their having brought real 
savages into discredit, by the craven and clumsy manner in 
which they had carried out their imitation. 

“ Nothin’ better is to be expected from such critturs,” he 
observed, after we had discussed the matter together, at 
some little length, “ though fire is held to be lawful warfare, 
even on the prer-ies. For my part. I’m not at all sorry 
there is something to do ; nor will my chiefs be melancholy 
on this account, for it is dull work to be doing nothing, for 
months and months at a time, but smoking at councils, 


THE REDSKINS. 


97 

making speeches to folks who live by talking, and eating 
and drinking. Activity is the natur’ of a prer-ie man, and 
he’s always glad to pick his flint, after a spell of consider- 
able quiet. I’ll tell the Chippewa to step in, and bring out 
the redskins, a’ter which you can give your orders.” 

“ I could wish watchfulness rather than violence. The 
men can lie in watch, near the principal buildings, and it 
might be well to have some water ready, to extinguish any 
flames that may be lighted, before they get too far ahead.” 

“ Just as you say. Colonel, for you are my Captain-Gene- 
ral. But, I can tell you how I did once, out on the prer-ies^ 
when I caught a rascal of a Sioux blowing a fire he had kin- 
dled at one of my own lodges. I just laid him on the flames, 
and let him put them out himself by bleeding on them.” 

“We must have no violence, unless it become indispensa- 
ble to save the . buildings. The law will not justify us, in 
using our arms, except in the last extremity. Prisoners I 
wish you to take ; for they may serve as hostages, besides 
furnishing examples to intimidate other offenders. I rely 
on you to give due warning to our red friends, on this 
subject.” 

The interpreter gave a sort of grunt, but he said nothing. 
The conversation went no farther, however, just then ; for, 
by this time, the Indians came stealing out of the house, 
every man of them armed, looking dusky, prepared and full 
of wariness. Manytongues did not keep them long, but 
soon told his story. After this, his authority appeared, in a 
great measure, to cease. Flintyheart was now the most 
promlfient of the party, though Prairiefire, and another war- 
rior, were also connected with the orders given to the rest. 
I observed that Eaglesflight had no part in these arrange- 
ments, which were peculiarly military, though he appeared, 
armed and ready, and went forth on the sudden call, like 
the rest. In five minutes the Indians were all off, princi- 
pally in pairs, leaving the interpreter and myself still stand- 
ing together, in front of the deserted house. 

It was, by this time, past one o’clock, and I thought it 
probable my enemies would soon appear, if they came 
that night. Accompanied by the interpreter, I took the 
way towards the Nest House, it occurring to me that arms 
might be wanted, in the course of the morning. On quit- 

VoL. II.— -9 


THE RED !S KINS. 


98 

ting my room, the rifle and pistol provided by John had 
been left there, and I thought of stealing into the house 
again, obtaining those weapons, extinguish my lights, and 
rejoin my present companion, without giving alarm to any 
of the sleepers. 

This plan was successfully executed, so far as ascending 
to my room and descending to the door were concerned, 
but there it met with an interruption. While in the very 
act of closing the little postern, as we used to call jt, by 
way of pleasantry, I felt a small soft hand laid on the one 
of my own which was drawing to the door after me. In 
an instant I had turned, and was at the side of Mary War- 
ren. I expressed my surprise at finding her still up, and 
concern lest she might suffer in health, in consequence of 
so much unusual watchfulness. 

“ I could not sleep after what has passed to-night,” she 
answered, “ without knowing the meaning of all these 
movements. I have been looking from my window, and 
saw you assist Opportunity to get on her horse, and after- 
ward walk towards the old farm-house, where the Indians 
are lodged. Tell me frankly, Mr. Littlepage, is there any 
danger to be apprehended I” 

“I shall be frank with you, Mary” — ^^how easy and 
pleasant it was to me to use this gentle familiarity, which 
might now be assumed without appearing to be presump- 
tuous, under all the circumstances of our intercourse ; “ I 
shall be frank with you, Mary ; for I know that your pru- 
dence and self-command will prevent any unnecessary 
alarm, while your watchfulness may be of use. There is 
some reason to fear the brand.” 

“ The brand !” 

“ So Opportunity has given me reason to suppose ,* and I 
do not think she would have ridden the distance she did, at 
such an hour, unless her business were serious. The brand 
is the proper instrument of the anti-renter, and renders his 
disguise convenient. I have got all the red-men on the 
look-out, however ; and I do not think that mischief can be 
done to-night, without its being detected. To-morrow, we 
can appeal to the authorities for protection.” 

“ I will not sleep this night !” exclaimed Mary, drawing 
the light shawl she wore, as a protection against the air of 


99 


THE REDSKINS. 

(hat summer-night, more closely around her person, as a 
sterner being might be supposed to gird on his armour in a 
moment of peril. “ I care not for rest. They ought not, 
they shall not, Mr. Littlepage, do you this wrong. Have 
you apprehensions for this house?” 

“ One never knows. This house is not easily set fire to 
from without, and I scarcely think there can be any enemy 
within. The domestics are old and tried, and I do not.believe 
that either of them could be bought. I feel little apprehen- 
sion, therefore, from any within, while I confess to a good 
deal from those without. Fire is such a dreadful foe, and 
one is usually so helpless against its ravages in the coun- 
try I -I will not ask you to retire, for I know you will not 
■ — nay, cannot sleep ; but, by passing from window to win- 
dow, for the next hour, or until I rejoin you, your mind 
will be occupied, and possibly some injury might be pre- 
vented. An unseen observer from a window might detect 
an attempt that would escape those on the watch without.” 

“ I will do so,” said Mary, eagerly ; “ and should I dis- 
cover anything, I will open a leaf of the shutter of my own 
room. You can then see the light of the candle within, 
and by coming at once to this door, you will find me here, 
ready to let you know my discovery.” 

With this understanding we parted, but not until I had 
shaken hands affectionately with this gentle-looking, but 
really resolute and clear-headed girl. I rejoined Many- 
tongues, who stood in the shadows of the piazza, where 
there was no possibility of his being seen, except by one 
quite near his person. After a brief explanation, we parted, 
one taking the north side of the buildings, and the other the 
south, in order to make certain no incendiary was at work 
on either of the wings. 

The Nest House was much less exposed to attempts like 
those we apprehended, than most American dwellings. The 
structure being of stone, left but little inflammable material 
accessible ; and the doors, on the exterior, were only two— 
those already mentioned. There was a great gate, it is 
true ; one large enough to admit a cart into the inner court, 
on the southern face of the wing, beneath the arch of which 
an incendiary might, indeed, make his attempt, though a 
practised rogue would at once see the dilficulties. Little 


THE REDSKINS. 


iOO 

wood was even there, beyond that of the massive gate itself 
which, once burnt, would leave no further fuel for flames. 

I examined the place, notwithstanding; and finding all safe 
on my side of the building, I went to rejoin the interpreter, 
who was to meet me at the foot of a fine beech, which spread 
*ts broad arms over the lawn, at the distance of about a 
hundred yards from the house, and so nearly in its front, as 
to afford us, in all respects, the most eligible position for 
sentinels on duty like ours, far or near. 

At the foot of that beech I found Manytongues, and the 
deep obscurity in which his form was embedded, was, of 
itself, a high recommendation of the position. I did not see 
him until almost near enough to touch him. He was seated 
on a bench, and seemed entirely at his ease, like-one accus- 
tomed to ambushes, vigilance, and midnight assaults. We 
I exchanged reports, ascertained all was well, and then I took 
! my seat at the interpreter’s side, willing to beguile the time 
j by such discourse as occurred to my mind. 

! “ That was a most interesting scene, last evening,” I re- 

j marked ; “ the interview between Old Trackless and your ! 

j rod companions ! I own a lively curiosity to know what | 

I particular claim our aged friend has on those distant tribes, ! 

! that chiefs of note have come so far to see him?” j 

i “ They have not come all the way from the prer-ies, to | 
this spot, on any such ar’n’d, though I do not question their i 

I readiness to do so. In the first place, old age, when accom- j 

! panied by wisdom, and sobriety, and a good character, goes 
a great way with savages, in gin’ral. But, there is some- 
thing partic’lar about the acts of Susquesus that I do not 
know, which raises him higher than common in redskin 
j eyes. I intend to I’arn what it is before we quit this country.” 

A pause succeeded ; then I spoke of the “ prer-ies,” as 
almost all western men pronounce the word. I drew such | 
i an outline of the life as I supposed my companion passed ; 

I there, thinking it might be agreeable to hear his own hiibits | 

I and enjoyments extolled. j 

I “ I’il tell you how it is. Colonel,” returned the mterpre- ! 

j ter, with a little show of feeling ; much more than he had I 

previously manifested on any occasion during our short ac- 
quaintance ; “ yes, I ’ll jist tell you how it is. Prer-ie lifg 
is delightsome to them that loves freedom and justice,” 


THE REDSKINS. 


101 

“ Freedom I can understand,” said I, interrupting him, in 
my surprise — “ but as for justice, I should think that laws 
are absolutely necessary.” 

“Ay, that’s a settlement idee, I know , but it’s not as 
true as some supposes. There is no court and jury like 
this, Colonel,” slapping the breech of his rifle with energy ; 
“ and eastern powder conspired with Galena lead, makes 
the best of attorneys. I ’ve tried both, and speak on sar- 
tainty. Law druv’ me out upon the prer-ies, and love for 
them keeps me there. Down this-a-way, you ’re neither one 
thing nor tuther — law nor rifle ; for, if you had law, as law 
ought to be, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here, at this time 
of night, to prevent your mock Injins from setting fire to 
your houses and barns.” 

There was only too much truth in this last position of 
the straightforward interpreter to be gainsaid. Afler making 
some proper allowances for the difficulties of the case, and 
the unexpected circumstances, no impartial man could deny 
that the laws had been trifled with, or things never would 
have reached the pass they had : as Manytongues affirmed, 
we had neither the protection of the law, nor the use of the 
rifle. It ought to be written in letters of brass in all the 
highways and places of resort in the country, that a state 

OF SOCIETY WHICH PRETENDS TO THE PROTECTION THAT 
BELONGS TO CIVILIZATION, AND FAILS TO GIVE IT, ONLY 
MAKES THE CONDITION OF THE HONEST PORTION OF THE 
COMMUNITY SO MUCH THE WORSE, BY DEPRIVING IT OF THE 
PROTECTION CONFERRED BY NATURE, WITHOUT SUPPLYING 
THE SUBSTITUTE. 

I dare say the interpreter and I sat an hour under that 
tree, conversing in low voices, on such matters and things 
as came uppermost in our minds. There was a good deal 
of true prer-ie philosophy in the opinions of my companion, 
which is much as if one should say his notions were a mix- 
ture of clear natural justice and strong local prejudices. 
The last sentiment he uttered was so very characteristic as 
to merit particular notice. 

“ I’ll tell you how it is. Colonel,” he said, “ right is 
right, and nonsense is nonsense. If so be, we should hap- 
pen to catch one of these mocking rascals firing your 
house or barn, it would be a smart chance at justice to settle 
9 ^ 


THE REDSKINS. 


102 

things on the spot. If I had 7ny way, I should just tie tha 
fellow, hands and feet, and toss him into the flames to help 
him along with his own work. A rascal makes the best of 
kindling-wood !” 

Just at that instant I saw an upper leaf of the inside shutter 
of Mary Warren’s room open, for my eye was resting on the 
window at that very moment. The light had been brought 
so near the opening as plainly to show the change, leaving no 
doubt that my fair sentinel within had made some important 
discovery. At such a summons I could not hesitate; but, tell- 
ing Manytongues to continue his watchfulness, I went across 
the lawn with the steps of youth and haste. In two minutes 
my hand was on the latch of the little door ; and, in two se- 
conds more, it was open, and I found myself standing in front 
of Mary Warren. A gesture from her hand induced me to be 
cautious, and closing the door silently,! asked an explanation. 

“ Speak not too loud,” whispered the anxious girl, pre- 
serving a wonderful self-command, nevertheless, for the 
extraordinary circumstances in which she was placed.” I 
have discovered them; they are here!” 

“ Here ! — not in the house, surely ?” 

“ In the house itself I — in the kitchen, where they are 
kindling a fire on the floor at this instant. Come quickly; 
— there is not a moment to lose.” 

It may be well to explain here the arrangement of the 
kitchens and offices, in order to render what is to follow the 
more intelligible. The gateway mentioned cut the southern 
wing of the house into two equal parts, the chambers, how- 
ever, extending the whole length, and of course passing 
over it. On the western side of this gateway were certain 
offices connected with the eating-rooms, and those eating- 
rooms themselves. On the eastern side were the kitchen, 
servants’ hall, scullery, &c., and a flight of narrow stairs 
that led to the chambers occupied by the domestics. The 
outside door to this latter portion of the building was be- 
neath the arch of the gateway, one corresponding to it 
opening on its opposite side, and by means of which the 
service was ordinarily made. There was a court, environed 
on three of its sides by the main edifice, and by the two 
long, low wings that have been so often mentioned, while it 
was open on the fourth to the cliflT. This cliff was low, 


THE REDSKINS 


103 

And, while it was nearly perpendicular, it was possible for 
an active man to ascend, or even to descend 1t, by cl-inging 
to the rocks, which were sufficiently ragged to admit of 
such an adventure. When a boy I had done both fifty 
times, and it was a somewhat common experiment among 
the male domestics and hirelings of the household. It 
occurred to me at once that the incendiaries had most pro- 
bably entered the house by ascending the cliff, the kitchen 
of itself furnishing all the materials to light a conflagration. 

The reader will be assured that, after receiving the start- 
ling communication of Mary Warren, I did not stop to dis- 
cuss all these matters with her. My first impulse was to 
desire her to run to the beech, and bid Manytongues join 
me, buf she refused to quit my side. 

“ No — no — no. You must not go to the kitchen alone,” 
she said, hurriedly. “ There are t 2 t>o of them, and desperate 
looking wretches are they, with their faces blackened, and 
they have muskets. No — no — no. Come, I will accom- 
pany you.” 

I hesitated no longer, but moved forward, Mary keeping 
close at my side. Fortunately, I had brought the rifle with 
me, and the revolving pistol was in my pocket. We went 
by the eating-rooms and offices, the course taken by Mary 
herself on her watch ; and who, in looking through a small 
wdndow of one of the last, that opened beneath the gateway, 
had discoyered what was going on, by means of a similar 
window in the kitchen. As we v/ent, the noble girl told me 
that she had kept moving through the lower rooms of the 
whole house during the time I had been on watch out of 
doors, and, attracted by the light that gleamed through these 
windows, she had distinctly seen two men, with black- 
ened faces, kindling a fire in a corner of the kitchen, where 
the flames must soon communicate with the stairs, by means 
of which they would speedily reach the attics and the wood 
work of the roof. Fortunately, the floors of all that part of 
the house were made of bricks ; that of the servants’ hall 
excepte<i, which was a room beyond the narrow passage 
that contained the stairs. As soon as apprised of the danger, 
I Mary Warren had flown to the window of her own room, to 
make the signal to me, and then to the door to meet me. 
But three or four minutes had elapsed between the time 


THE REDSKINS. 


104 

when she became apprised of the danger and that when wo j 
were walking hurriedly to the window beneath the gateway 

A bright light, which shone through the opposite window . 
announced the progress made by the incendiaries. Request* 
ing Mary to remain where she was, I passed through the 
door, and descended to the pavement of the gateway. The 
little > window beneath the arch was too high for my pur- 
poses, when on that level, but there was a row of low win 
dows that opened on the court. To one of these I moved 
swiftly, and got a clear view of all that was passing within. 

“There they are!” exclaimed Mary, who, neglectful of 
my request, still kept close at my side. “Two men with 
blackened faces, and the wood of which they have made 
their fire is blazing brightly.” 

The fire, now I saw it, did not confirm the dread I felt 
when I had it before me only in imagination. The stair- 
way had an open plaze beneath it, and on the brick floor 
below had the incendiaries built their pile. It was con- 
structed, at the bottom, of some of the common wood thai- 
was found there, in readiness for the wants of the cook in 
the morning, lighted by coals taken from the fire-place. A 
considerable pile had been made with the wood, which was 
now burning pretty freely, and the two rascals were busy 
piling on the chairs when I first saw them. They had made j 
a good beginning, and in ten or fifteen minutes longer there 
is no doubt that all that portion of the house would have been 
in flames. 

“ You said they had muskets,” I whispered to Mary. “ Do 
you see them now ?” 

“ No : w'hen I saw them, each held his musket in one 
hand, and worked with the other.” 

I could have shot the villains without difficulty or risk to 
myself, but felt deeply averse to taking human life. Still, 
there was the prospect of a serious struggle before me, and 
I saw the necessity of obtaining assistance. 

“ Will you go to my uncle’s room, Mary, and tell him to j 
rise immediately. Then to the front door of theffiouse, and I 
call out, ‘ Manylongues, come here as fast as possible.’ It 
will take but two minutes to do both, and I will watch these 
i*ascals in the mean time.” 



THE REDSKINS. 105 

I “ I dread leaving you here alone with the wretches, Mr. 

! Littlepage,” whispered Mary, gently. I 

I An earnest entreaty on my part, how'ever, induced her | 

j to comply ; and, no sooner did the dear girl set about the : 

accomplishment of the task, than she flew rather than ran. | 
It did not seem to me a minute ere I heard her call to the in- 
terpreter. The night was so still, that, sweet as were those 
tones, and busy as were the incendiaries, they heard them 
too; or fancied they heard something which alarmed them. 
They spoke to each other, looked intently at their infernal | 

work for a single instant, sought their arms, which were j 

standing in the corner of the kitchen, and were evidently j 

preparing to depart. ! 

The crisis was near. There was not time to receive as- ! 

I sistance before the two fellows would be out, and I must | 

I either meet them in conflict, or suffer them to escape. My | 

j first impression was to shoot down the leading man, and | 

! grapple with the other ere he had time to prepare his arms. | 

j But a timely thought prevented this hazardous step. The I 

incendiaries were retiring, and I had a doubt of the legality j 

of killing a retreating felon. I believed that my chances j 

before a jury would be far less than those of an ordinary ! 

pick-pocket or highway robber, and had heard and read ■ 

enough to be certain there were thousands around me who i 

would fancy it a sufficient moral provocation for all which | 

I had passed, that I held the fee of farms that other men de- ! 

j sired to possess. ' | 

j A majority of my countrymen will scout this idea as forced 
j and improbable. But, majorities are far from being infalli- 

I ble in their judgments. Let any discreet and observant man 

I take a near view of that which is daily going on around him. 

i If he do not find in men this disposition to distort principles, 

i to pervert justice, and to attain their ends regardless of the 

j means, then will I admit I do not understand human nature, 

as human nature exhibits its deformity in this blessed re- 
i public of onrs. 

; There was no time to lose, however; and the course 1 
; actually decided to take will be soonest told by relating 
I things as they occurred. I heard the door open, and was 
I ready for action. Whether the incendiaries intended to 
retreat by the cliff, or to open the gate, which was barred 


THE REDSKINS. 


106 

within, I could not tell ; but I was ready for either alter- 
native. 

No sooner did I hear a step on the pavement of the gate- 
way than I discharged my rifle in the air. This was dona 
as an alarm-signal. Clubbing the piece, I sprang forward, 
and felled the foremost of the two, with a sharp blow on his 
hat. The follow came down on the pavement like an ox 
under the axe of the slaughter-house. Dropping the rifle, I 
bounded over his body, and grappled with his' companion. 
All this was done so rapidly as to take the rascals com- 
pletely by surprise. So sudden, indeed, was my assault on 
the fellow who stood erect, that he was under the necessity 
of dropping his rifle, and at it we went, clenched like bears 
in the death-hug. I Was young and active, but my antago- 
nist was the stronger man of the two. He had also the 
advantage of being practised in wrestling, and I soon went 
down, my enemy falling on top of me. Luckily, I fell on 
the body of the other incendiary, who was just beginning to 
discover signs of consciousness after the crushing blow he 
had received. My chance would now have been small but 
for assistance. The incendiary had caught my neck-hand- 
kerchief, and was twisting it to choke me, when I felt a 
sudden relief. The light of the fire shone through the 
kitchen doors, rendering everything distinct beneath the arch. 
Mary came flying back just in time to rescue me. With a 
resolution that did her honour, she caught up the rifle I had 
dropped, and passed its small end between the bent arms of 
my antagonist and his own back, raising it at the same time 
like a lever. In the brief interval of breathing this ready 
expedient gave me, I rallied my force, caught my enemy by 
the throat, made a desperate effort, threw him off, and over 
on his side, and was on my feet in an instant. Drawing the 
pistol, I ordered the rascal to yield, or to take the conse- 
quences. The sight of this weapon secured the victory, the 
black-faced villain shrinking back into a corner, begging 
piteously not to be shot. At the next moment, the interpre- 
ter appeared under the arch, followed by a stream of red- 
skins, which had been turned in this direction by the alarm 
given by my rifle. 


THE REDSKINS. 


107 


CHAPTER VIIL 


« Ye say they all have passed away, 

That noble race and brave ; 

That their light canoes have vanish’d 
From off the crested wave ; 

That ’mid the forests where they roam’d 
There rings no hunter’s shout ; 

But their name is on your waters, 

Ye may not wash it out.” 

Mrs. SiffouaiTET. 

Directing Many tongues to secure the two incendiaries, 

sprang into the kitchen to extinguish the flames. It was 
high time, though Mary Warren had already anticipated mo 
here, too. She had actually thrown several dippers of v/ater 
upon the fire, which was beginning to crackle through the 
pile of chairs, and had already succeeded in lessening the 
flames. I knew that a hydrant stood in the kitchen itself, 
which gave a full stream of water. Filling a pail, I threw 
the contents on the flames ; and repeating the application, 
in half a minute the room was filled with vapour, and to the 
bright light succeeded a darkness that was so deep as to sug- 
gest the necessity of finding lamps and candles. 

The tumult produced by the scene just described soon 
brought all in the house to the spot. The domestics, male 
and female, came tumbling down the stairs, under which the 
fire had been lighted, and presently candles were seen glanc- 
ing about the house, in all directions. 

“ I declare, Mr. Hugh,” cried John, the moment he had 
taken a survey of the state of the kitchen, “ this is worse 
than Hireland, sir ! The Hamericans affect to laugh at the 
poor Hirish, and calls their country savage, and hunfit to 
be in’abited, but nothing worse passes in it than is beginning 
to pass ’ere. Them stairs would have been all in flames in 
a few minutes, and them stairs once on fire, not one of hus, 
up in the hattics, could ’ave escaped death ! Don’t talk of 
Hireland, after this !” 

Poor John ! his prejudices are those of an Englishman of 


his class, and that is saying as much in favour of their 
strength as can be well said of any prejudices. But, how 
much truth was there in his remark ! The quiet manner in 
I which we assume superiority, in morals, order, justice and 
s virtue, over all other nations, really contains an instructive 
I lesson, if one will only regard things as they really are. I 

have no wish to exaggerate the faults of my own country, 

1 but certainly I shall not remorselessly conceal them, when 
I the most dangerous consequences are connected with such 
j a mistake. As a whole, the disorders, disturbances, and 

j convulsions of America have certainly been much fewer 

than those of most, perhaps of all other Christian nations, 
comparing numbers, and including the time since the great 
experiment commenced. But, such ovght to have been the 
result of our facts, quite independently of national character. 
The institutions leave nothing for the masses to struggle for, 
and famine is unknown among us. But what does the other 
side of the picture exhibit? Can any man point to a country 
in Europe in which a great political movement has com 
menced on a principle as barefacedly knavish as that ol 
I transferring property from one class of men to another > 
That such a project does exist here, is beyond all just con 
tradiction ; and it is equally certain that it has carried it5 
devices into legislation, and is fast corrupting the govern 
ment in its most efficient agents. John was right in saying 
we ought not to turn up our noses at the ebullitions of abused 
and trodden-on “ Hireland,” while our own skirts are to be 
cleared of such sins against the plainest dictates of right. 

The fire was extinguished, and the house was safe. The 
kitchen was soon cleared of the steam and smoke, and in 
their places appeared a cloud of redskins. Prairiefire, Ea 
glesflight, and Flintyheart, were all there, examining the 
effects of the fire, with stern and interested countenances. 1 
I looked round for Mary Warren ; but that gentle and singu- 
larly feminine girl, after manifesting a presence of mind and 
decision that would have done honour to a young man of 
her own age, had shrunk back with sensitive consciousness, 
and now concealed herself among the others of her sex. 
Pier duty, so eminently useful and protective, had been per^ 
formed, and she was only anxious to have it all forgotten. 
This I discovered only next day, however. 


! 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 




109 


Many tongues had secured the incendiaries, and they 
^ were now in the kitchen, also, with tlieir liands tied toge- 
ther, and arms bound behind their backs, at the elbows. As 
heir faces remained black, it was out of my power to re- 
cognise either. The rascal who had been felled by the blow 
of the rifle was yet confused in manner, and I ordered the 
‘ domestics to wash him, in the double expectation of bringing 
him more completely to his senses, and of ascertaining who 
he might be. 

The'" vv'orJ^ was soon done, and both objects w'ere attained. 

. The cook used a dishcloth with so much dexterity, that the 
black-a-moor came out a white man, at the first application, 
and he was soon as clean as a child that is about to be sent 
j - to. school, fresh from the hands of its nurse. The re- 
moval of the disguise brought out the abashed and fright- 
I ened physiognomy of Joshua Brigham, Miller’s hired man 
! — or my hired man, in effect, as I paid him his wages, 

j Yes ! such was one of the effects of the pernicious opi- 
! nions that had been so widely circulated in the land, during 
1 the profound moral mania that was working its ravages 
! among us, with a fatality and danger that greatly exceed 
those which accompanied the cholera. A fellow, who was 
almost an inmate of my family, had not only conspired 
with others to rob me of my property, on a large scale, but 
he had actually carried his plot so far as to resort to the 
brand and the rifle, as two of the agents to be employed in 
carrying out his virtuous objects. Nor was this the result 
of the vulgar disposition to steal ; it was purely a conse- 
sequence of a widely-extended system, that is fast becoming 
incorporated with the politics of the land, and which men, 

! relying on the efflcacy of majorities, are bold enough to 
' stand up, in legislative halls, to defend.*' 


* In order that the reader who is not familiar with what is passing 
in N ew York may not suppose that exaggerated terms are here used, 
the writer will state a single expedient of the anti-renters in the legis- 
lature to obtain their ends. It is generally known that the Constitu- 
tion of the United States prevents the separate States from passing 
laws impairing the obligations of contracts. But for this provision of 
the Federal Constitution, it is probable, numbers would have succeed- 
ed, long ago, in obtaining the property of the few on their own terms, 
»mid shouts in honour of liberty ! This provision, however, has preved 

VoL. II. — 10 


I 


THE RE DSKINS. 


I confess that the discovery of the person of Joshua 
Brigham rendered me a little curious to ascertain that of 
j his companion. Hester, the cook, was directed to take the 

I other child in hand, as soon as she had well wiped the 

1 countenance of the one first unmasked. Nothing loth, the 
! good .housewife set about her task, and the first dab of water 
she applied revealed the astounding fact that I had again 
captured Seneca Newcome ! It will be remembered, that 
the last time I saw these two men together, I left them 
fighting in the highway. 

I admit that this discovery shocked me. There never had 
been a being of the Newcome tribe, from the grandfather, 
who was its root at Ravensnest, down to Opportunity, who 
had ever been esteemed, or respected among us. Trick — • 
trick — trick — low cunning, and overreaching management, 
had been the family trait, from the day Jason, of that name, 
had rented the mill lot, down to the present hour. This I 
had heard from my grandfather, my grandmother, my own 
father, my uncle, my aunts and all, older than myself, who 
belonged to me. Still, there they had been, and habit had 
created a sort of feeling for them. There had, also, been a 
j species of pretension about the family, which brought them 
j more before us, than most of the families of the tenantry. 


a stubborn obstacle, until the world, near the middle of the nineteenth 
century, has been favoured with the following notable scheme to 
effect the ends of those who ‘want farms and must have them.’ 
The State can regulate, by statute, the law of descents. It has, accord- 
ingly, been solemnly proposed in the legislature of New York, that the 
statute of descents should be so far altered, that when a landlord, hold- 
ing lands subject to certain leasehold tenures, dies, or a descent is cast, 
that it shall be lawful for the tenants, on application to the chancellor, 
to convert these leasehold tenures into mortgages, and to obtain the 
fee-simple of the estates in payment of the debt ! In other words, A 
leases a farm to B for ever, reserving a ground-rent, with covenants of 
re-entry, &c. &c. B wishes a deed, but will not pay A’s price. The 
United States says the contract shall not be impaired, and the Legisla- 
ture of New York is illustrated by the expedient we have named, to 
get over the provision of the Constitution ! 

Since writing the foregoing, this law has actually passed the Assem- 
bly, though it has not been adopted by the Senate. The provision 
included all leased property, when the leases were for more than 
twenty-one years, or were on lives. — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 



Ill 


The grandfather had received a sort of an education, and 
.his practice had been continued, after a manner, down to 
the unfortunate wretch who now stood a prisoner taken 
f agrante delictu, and for a capital crime. Seneca could 
never have made a gentleman, as the term is understood 
among gentlemen ; but he belonged to a profession which 
ought to raise a man materially above the level of the vulgar. 
Opportunity, too, had received her quasi education, a far 
more pretending one than that of my own Patt, but nothing 
had been well taught to her ; not even reading, inasmuch as 
she had a decided provincial pronunciation, which some- 
times grated on my nerves. But, Opportunity had feelings, 
and could not have anticipated her own brother’s intentions, 
when she communicated the important information she had. 
Opportunity, moreover, had more refinement than Seneca, 
in consequence of having a more limited association, and she 
might fall into despair, at this unexpected result of her 
own acts ! 

I was still reflecting on these things, when summoned to 
my grandmother. She was ir\ her own dressing-room, sur- 
rounded by the four girls; just so many pictures of alarm, 
interest, and female loveliness. Mary Warren, alone, was in 
regular toilette ; but the others, with instinctive coquetry, had 
contrived to wrap themselves up, in a way to render them 
handsomer than ever. As for my dear grandmother her- 
self, she had been told that the house was safe, but felt that 
vague desire to see me, that was perhaps natural to the cir- 
cumstances. 

“ The state of the country is frightful,” she said, when I 
had answered a few of her questions, and had told her who 
the prisoners really were; “ and we can hardly remain hero, 
in safety. Think of one of the Newcomes — and of Seneca, 
in particular, with his profession and education, being en- 
gaged in such a crime !” 

“ Nay, grandmother,” put in Patt, a little archly, “ I never 
yet heard you speak well of the Newcomes : you barely 
tolerated Opportunity, in the hope of improving her.’’ 

“ It is true, that the race is a bad one, and the circum- 
stances show what injury a set of fasle notions, transmitted 
from father to son, for generations, may do in a family. 
We cannot think of keeping these dear girls, here, ona 




THE REDSKINS. 


112 

hour after to-morrow, Hugh. To-morrow, or to-day, for it 
is now past two o’clock, I see ; — to-day is Sunday, and we 
can go to church ; to-night we will be watchful, and Mon- 
day morning, your uncle shall start for Satanstoe, with all 
three of the girls.” 

“ r shall not leave my dear grandmother,” rejoined Patt — 
“ nor do I think it would be very kind to leave Mary War- 
ren behind us, in a place like this.” 

“ I cannot quit my father,” said Mary, herself, quietly, 
but very firmly. “ It is his duty to remain with his parish- 
ioners, and more so, now’, that so many of them are mis- 
guided, than at any other time ; and it is always my duty, 
and my pleasure, to remain with /iim.” 

Was that acting? Was that Pharisaical? Or w'as it 
genuine nature; pure filial affection and filial piety? Be- 
yond all question, it was the last ; and had not the simple 
tone, the earnest manner, and the almost alarmed eagerness, 
with which the dear girl spoke, proclaimed as much, no one 
could have looked in at that serene and guileless eye and 
doubted. My grandmother smiled on the lovely earnest 
speaker, in her kindest manner, took her hand, and charm- 
ingly observed — 

“ Mary and I will remain together. Her father is in no 
danger, for even anti-renters will respect a minister of the 
gospel, and can be made to understand it is his duty to re- 
buke even their sins. As for the other girls, I think it is 
our duty to insist that j^our uncle’s wards, at least, should 
no longer be exposed to dangers like those we have gone 
through to-night.” 

The two young ladies, however, protested in the prettiest 
manner possible, their determination not to quit “ grand- 
mamma,” as they affectionately termed their guardian’s 
mother; and while they were thus employed, my uncle Ro 
entered the room, having just paid a visit to the kitchen. 

“ Here ’s a charming affair !” exclaimed the old bachelor^ 
as soon as in our midst. “ Arson, anti-rentism, attempts at 
murder, and all sorts of enormities, going hand in hand, in 
the very heart of the wisest and best community that earth 
ever knew ; and the laws as profoundly asleep the whole 
time, as if such gentle acts were considered meritoriou.s. 
This out-does repudiation twenty-fold, Hugh. 


“ Ay, ir.y dear sir, but it will not make a tithe of the talk. 
Look at the newspapers that will be put into your hands to- 
morrow morning, fresh from Wall and Pine and Anne 
i streets. They wall be in convulsions, if some unfortunate 
wight of a Senator speak of adding an extra corporal to a 
regiment of foot, as an alarming war-demonstration, or quote 
the fall of a fancy stock that has not one cent of intrinsic 
value, as if it betokened the downfall of a nation ; while 
they do"ze over this volcano, which is raging and gathering 
strength beneath the whole community, menacing destruc- 
tion to the nation itself, which is the father of stocks.” 

“ The intense selfishness that is uppermost is a bad symp- 
tom, certainly ; and no one can say to what it will lead. 
One thing is sure; it causes men to limit all their calcula- 
tions to the present moment ; and to abate a nuisance that 
presses on our existing interests, they will jeopard every- 
thing that belongs to the future. But what are we to do 
with Seneca Newcome, and his co-rascal, the other incen- 
diary ?” 

“ I had thought of referring that to your discretion, sir. 

• They have been guilty of arson, I suppose, and must take 
their chances, like every-day criminals.” 

“ Their chances will be very good ones, Hugh. Had you 
been caught in Seneca Newcome’s kitchen, setting fire to 
his house, condign and merciless punishment would have 
been your lot, beyond all controversy; but their cases will 
be very different. I ’ll bet you a hundred that they ’ll not 
be convicted ; and a thousand that they are pardoned, if 
convicted.” 

“Acquitted, sir, will be out of the question — Miss War- 
ren and I saw them both, in the very act of building their 
lire; and there is plenty of testimony, as to their ide.ntily.” 

This indiscreet speech drew every eye on my late com- 
panion ; all the ladies, old and young, repeating the name 
of “Mary !” in the pretty manner in which the sex expresses 
surprise. As for Mary, herself, the poor blushing girl shrunk , 
back abashed, ashamed of she knew not what, unless it 
might be in connection with some secret consciousness, at 
ending herself so strangely associated with me. 

“ Miss Warren is, indeed, in her evening dress,” said my 
10 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


114 

grandmother, a little gravely, “ and cannot have been in bed 
this night. How has this happened, my dear?” 

Thus called on, Mary Warren was of too guileless and 
pure a ‘mind, to hesitate in telling her tale. Every incident, 
with which she had been connected, was simply and clearly 
related, though she suppressed the name of our midnight 
visiter, out of tenderness to Opportunity. All present were 
too discreet to ask the name, and, I may add, all present 
heard the narrative with a marked and approving interest. 
When Mary had done, my grandmother kissed her, and 
Patt, the generous creature, encircled her waist, with the 
tenderness and affection of a sister, who felt for all the trials 
the other had endured. 

“ It seems, then, we owe our safety to Mary, after all !” 
exclaimed my good grandmother; “without her care and 
watchfulness, PJugh might, most probably would, have re- 
mained on the lawn, until it was too late to save the house, 
or us.” 

“That is not all,” added uncle Ro. “Any one could 
have cried ‘ fire,’ or given a senseless alarm, but it is evi- 
dent from Miss Warren’s account, unpremeditated and art- 
less as it is, that, but for the cool and discreet manner in 
which she played her part, not one-half of that which has 
been done, would, have been effected, and that the house 
might have been lost. Nay, had these fellows surprised 
Hugh, instead of Hugh’s surprising them, we might have 
been called on to deplore his loss.” 

I saw a common shudder in Patt and Mary, as they stood 
encircling each other with their arms ; but the last was evi- 
dently so pained, that I interfered for- her relief. 

“ I do not see any possibility of escape for these incen- 
diaries,” I said, turning to my uncle, “ under the testimony 
that can be offered, and am surprised to hear you suggest a 
doubt of the result of the trial.” 

“You feel and reason like a very young man, Hugh; 
one, who fancies things are much nearer what they ought 
to be than facts will sustain. Justice is blind, now-a-days, 
not as a proof of impartiality, but as a proof that she too 
oflcn sees only one side of a question. How will they es- 
cape? Perhaps the jury may fancy setting fire to a pile of 


THE REDSKINS. 


115 

^'-<3od, and certain chairs, is not setting fire to a house, let 
the animus be as plain as the noses on their faces. Mark 
me, Hugh Littlepage ; one month will not go by, before the 
events of this very night will he tortured into an argument 
in favour of anti-rentism.” 

A common exclamation, in which even my grandmother 
joined, expressed the general dissent from this opinion. 

“ It is all very well, ladies,” answered my uncle Ro, 
coolly — “all well enough. Master Hugh; but let the issue 
tell its own story. I have heard already other abuses of 
the anti-renters urged as a reason why the laws should be 
changed, in order that men may not be tempted beyond their 
strength ; and why not use the same reasoning in favour of 
this crime, when it has been used already, in cases of mur- 
der? ‘The leasehold tenures make men commit murder,’ 
it is said, ‘ and they ought to be destroyed,’ themselves. 
‘ The leasehold tenures make men commit arson,’ it will now 
be said, ‘ and who desires to retain laws that induce men to 
commit arson?”’ 

“ On the same principle it might b( pretended there should 
be no such thing as personals, as they tempt men, beyond 
what they can bear, to commit petty larceny.” 

“ No doubt it could, and no doubt it would, if political 
supremacy were to be the reward. There is nothing — no 
fallacy, no moral sophism, that would not be used to attain 
such an end. But, it is late, and we ought to bethink us of 
disposing of the prisoners for the night — what means this 
light ? The house is not on fire, after all !” 

Sure enough, notwithstanding the closed shutters, and 
drawn curtains of my grandmother’s dressing-room, an 
unusual light had penetrated to the place, filling us with 
sudden and intense alarm. I opened the door, and found 
the passages illuminated, though all within appeared tranquil 
and safe. There was a clamour in the court, however, and 
presently the fearful war-whoop of the savages rose on the 
night air. The cries came from without, as I fancied, and 
rushing to the little door, I was on the lawn in a moment, 
when the mystery was solved. An extensive hay-barn, one 
well filled with the remainder of the last year’s crops, was 
on fire, vsending its forked and waving tongues of flame at 
least a hundred feet into the air. It was merely a new ar- 


THE REDSKINS 


116 

gument against the leasehold tenures, and in favour of the 
“spirit of the institutions,” a little vividly pressed on the 
human senses. Next year, it may figure in the message of 
a governor, or the philanthropical efforts of some Albany 
orator, if the same “spirit” prevail in the “ institutions,” as 
would seem to prevail this ! Is a contract to be tolerated 
which induces freemen to set barns on fire? 

The barn that had been set on fire stood on the flats, be- 
low the cliff, and fully half a mile from the Nest. The con- 
flagration made a most brilliant blaze, and, as a matter of 
course, produced an intense light. The loss to myself did 
not exceed a few hundred dollars; and, while this particu- 
lar argument in favour of anti-rentism was not entirely 
agreeable, it was not so grave as it might have been, had it 
been urged on other buildings, and in the same mode. In 
other words, I was not so much distressed with my loss as 
not to be able to see the beauty of the scene ; particularly 
as my uncle Ro whispered that Dunning had caused an in- 
surance to be effected in the Saratoga Mutual Assurance, 
which would probably place a considerable portion of the 
tenants in the unlooked-for category of those who were to 
pay for their own frolic. 

As it was too late to think of saving the barn and ricks, 
and Miller, with his people, had already descended to the 
spot to look after the fences, and any other object that might 
be endangered by the flying embers, there was nothing for 
us to do but to remain passive spectators. Truly, the scene 
was one worthy of being viewed, and is not altogether unfit 
for description. 

The light of that burning barn extended for a great dis- 
tance, shining like what it was, an “ evil deed in a naughty 
world ;” for, notwithstanding the high authority of Shak- 
speare, it is your “evil deeds,” after all, that produce the 
brightest blazes, and which throw their beams the farthest, 
in this state of probation in which we live. 

The most remarkable objects in that remarkable scene 
were the true and the false redskins — the “ Indians” and the 
“ Injins” — both of whom were in motion on the meadows, 
and both of whom were distinctly visible to us where we 
stood, on the cliffs (the ladies being at their chamber win- 


THE REDSKINS. 117 

dows), though I dare say they were not quite so obvious to 
each other. 

The Indians had formed themselves into a very open 
order, and were advancing towards the other party in a 
stealthy manner, by creeping on all-fours, or crouching like 
catamounts to the earth, and availing themselves of every- 
thing like a cover that offered. The burning bam was be- 
tween the two parties, and was a principal reason that the 
“ Injins” were not sooner aware of the risk they ran. The 
last were a whooping, shouting, dancing, leaping band, of 
! some forty or fifty of the “ disguised and armed,” who were 

I quite near enough to the conflagration to enjoy it, without 

! being so nea^ as to be necessarily connected with it. We 

I understood their presence and antics to be intended as so 

i many intimations of the secret agency they had had in the 

I depredations of the night, and as so many warnings how I 

I withstood the “ spirit of the Institutions.” 

! Manytongues, who had certain vague notions of the ne- 
I cessity of his keeping on the windy side of the law, did not 

I accompany his red brethren, but came through the gateway 

I and joined my uncle and myself, as we stood beneath the 

i cover of a noble chestnut, on the verge of the cliff, watching 

i the course of things on the meadow. I expressed my sur- 

I prise at seeing him there, and inquired if his presence might 

i not be needed by Flintyheart or Prairiefire. 
i “Not at all, not at all. Colonel,” he answered with per- 
fect coolness. “ The savages have no great need of an 
intarpreter in the business they are on ; and if harm comes 
of the meeting it’s perhaps best that the two parties should 
not understand each other, in which case it might all be 
looked on as an accident. I hope they’ll not be particular 
about scalps, — for I told Flintyheart, as he was leaving us, 
the people of this part of the world did not like to be 
scalped.” 

This was the only encouragement we received from the 
interpreter, who appeared to think that matters were now 
in the right train, and that every difficulty would soon be 
disposed of, secundum artem. The Injins, however, viewed 
the affair differently, having no wish for a serious brush 
with any one ; much less with enemies of the known cha- 
racter of red-skins. How they ascertained the presence of. 


THE REDS KINS. 


ns 

their foe I cannot say, though it is probable some one saw 
them stealing along the meadows, in spite of all their care, 
and gave the alarm. Alarm it was, sure enough; the party 
of the previous day scarce retreating through the woods 
with greater haste than the “ disguised and armed” now 
vanished. I 

Such has been the fact, as respects these men, in every 
instance in which they have been brought in contact with j 
armed bodies, though much inferior to their own in numbers. ; 
Fierce enough, and even brutal, on a variety of occasions ! 

in which individuals have become subject to their power, in | 

all cases in which armed parties, however small, have been 
sent against them, they have betrayed timidity and a dread 
of making that very appeal to force, which, by their own * 
previous acts, they had insolently invited. Is it then true, i 
that these soi-disant “ Injins” have not the ordinary courage j 
of their race, and that they are less than Americans, with ! 
arms in their hands, and below the level of all around them j 
in spirit ? Such is not the case. The consciousness of guilt 
has made them cowards ; they have found “ that the king’s 
name is a tower of strength,” and have shrunk from con- | 

flicts, in which the secret warnings that come from on high i 

have told them that they were embodied in a wicked cause, | 
and contending for the attainment of wrong ends by unjus- i 
tifiable means. Their conduct proves how easy it would j 
have been to suppress their depredations at the earliest day, 
by a judicious application of the power of the State, and how 
much they have to answer for who have neglected their duty | 
in this particular. 

As soon as Flintyheart and his followers ascertained that 
the “ disguised and armed” were actually off again, and that 
they were not to pass the morning in a skirmish, as no doubt 
each man among them had hoped would to be the case, they 
set up such whoops and cries as had not been heard on ! 
those meadows during the last eighty years. The period 1 
went beyond the memory of man since Indian warfare had ! 
existed at Ravensnest, a few false alarms in the revolution I 
excepted. The effect’of these yells was to hasten the re- ! 
treat, as was quite apparent to us on the cliffs ; but the saga- I 
cious warriors of the Prairies knew too much to expose their i 
persons by approaching nearer to the blazing barn than | 


THE REDSKINS. 


119 

might be prudent. On the contrary, seemingly satisfied 
that nothing was to be done, and disdaining a parade of 
service where no service was to be effected, they slowly re- 
tired from the meadows, regaining the cliffs by means 
known to themselves. 

This military demonstration, on the part of our red 
brethren, was not without its useful consequences. It gave 
the “ Injins” an intimation of watchfulness, and of a readi- 
ness to meet them that prevented any new alarm that night, 
and satisfied everybody ^t the Nest that our immediate dan- 
ger had come to an end. Not only was this the feeling of 
my uncle and myself, but it was also the feeling of the fe- 
males, as we found on returning to the house, who had wit- 
nessed all that passed from the upper windows. After a 
short interview with my grandmother, she consented to 
retire, and preparations were made for setting a look-out, 
and dismissing everybody to their beds again. Many- 
tongues took charge of the watch, though 'he laughed at the 
probability of there being any further disturbance that 
night. 

“ As for the redskins,” he said, “ they would as soon 
sleep out under the trees, at this season of the year, as sleep 
under a roof ; and as for waking — cats a’nt their equals. 
No — no — Colonel ; leave it all to me, and I’ll carry you 
through the night as quietly as if we were on the prer-ies 
and living under good wholesome prer-ie law.” 

“ As quietly, as if we were on the prairies !” We had 
then reached that pass in New York-, that after one burning, 
a citizen might really hope to pass the remainder of his 
night as quietly as if he were on the prairies ! And there 
was that frothy, lumbering, useless machine, called a gov- 
ernment, at Albany, within fifty miles of us, as placid, as 
self-satisfied, as much convinced that this was the greatest 
people on earth, and itself their illustrious representatives, 
as if the disturbed counties were so many gardens of Eden, 
before sin and transgression had become known to it ! If 
it. was doing anything in the premises, it was probably 
calculating the minimum the tenant should pay for the 
landlord’s land, when the latter might be sufficiently wor- 
ried to part with his estate. Perhaps, it was Illustrating its 
notions of liberty, by naming the precise sum that one citi- 


THE REDSKINS. 


120 

z^*ought to accept, in order that the covetous longings oi 
another should be satisfied ! 

I was about to retire to my bed, for the first time that 
night, when my uncle Ro remarked it might be well to see 
one of our prisoners at least. Orders had been given to 
unbind the wretched men, and to keep them in an empty 
store-room, which had no available outlet but the door 
Thither we then repaired, and of course were admitted by 
the sentiiaels, without a question. Seneca Newcome was 
startled at my appearance, and I confess I was myself em- 
barrassed how to address him, from a wish to say nothing 
that might appear like exultation on one side, or concession 
on the other. My uncle, however, had no such scruples, 
probably from better knowing his man ; accordingly, he 
came to the point at once. 

“The evil spirit must have got great ascendency in the 
country, Seneca Newcome, when men of your knowledge, 
dip so deeply into his designs,” said Mr. Littlepage, sternly. 
“ What has my nephew ever done to incite you to come into 
his house, as an incendiary, like a thief in the night?” 

“ Ask me no questions, Mr. Littlepage,” surlily replied 
the attorney, “ for I shall answer none.” 

“ And this miserable misguided creature who has been 
your companion. The last we saw of these two men, Hugh, 
hey were quarrelling in the highway, like cat and dog, and 
there are signs about their faces that the interview became 
still more hostile than it had been, after we left them.” 

“ And here we find them together, companions in an en- 
' terprise of life and death !” 

“ It is ever thus with rogues. They will push their quar- 
rels to extremities, and make them up in an hour, when the 
demon of rapine points to an object for common plunder. 
You see the same spirit in politics, ay, and even in religion. 
Men that have lived in hostility, for half their lives, con- 
tending for selfish objects, will suddenly combine their pow- 
ers to attain a common end, and work together like the 
most true-hearted friends, so long as they see a chance of, 
effecting their wishes. If honesty were only one-half as 
active as roguery, it would fare better than it does. But the 
honest man has his scruples ; his self-respect ; his consis 
tency, and most of all his principles, to mark out his course, 


THE REDSKINS. 


121 

and he cannot turn aside at each new impulse, like your 
pure knave to convert enemies into friends, and friends into 
enemies. And you,” turning to Josh Brigham, who was 
looking surlily on — “ who have actually been eating Hugh 
Littlepage’s bread, what has he done, that you should come 
at midnight, to burn him up like a caterpillar in the 
spring?” 

‘‘ He has had his farm long enough” — muttered the fel- 
low — “ it’s time that poor folks had some chance.” 

Myuncle shrugged his shoulders ; then, as if he suddenly 
recollected himself, he lifted his hat, bowed like a thorough- 
bred gentleman as he was, when he chose to be, wished 
Seneca good night, and walked away. As we retired, he 
i , expressed his conviction of the’ uselessness of remonstrance, 
in this case, and of the necessity of suffering the law to take 
its own course. It might be unpleasant to see a Newcome 
actually hanged, but nothing short of that operation, he felt 
persuaded would ever fetch up the breed in its evil courses. 
Wearied with all that had passed, I now went to bed, and 
I slept soundly for the succeeding seven hours. As the house 
' was kept quiet by orders, everybody repaired the lost time, 
i the Nest being as quiet as in those days in which the law 
I ruled in the republic. 


[ VoL. II.— n 


i 

I 

i 

i 


122 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER IX. 


« WeH may we sing her beautie? 

This pleasant land of ours, 

Her sunny smiles, her golden fruits, 

And all her world of flowers. 

And well would they persuade us now. 

In moments all too dear. 

That, sinful though our hearts may be, 

AVe have our Eden here.” 

Simms. 

The following day was Sunday. 1 did not rise until 
nine, and when I withdrew the curtains and opened the shut* 
ters of my window, and looked out upon the lawn, and the 
fields beyond it, and the blue void that canopied all, I thought 
a lovelier day, or one more in harmony with the tranquil 
character of the whole scene, never shone from the heavens. 

I threw up the sash, and breathed the morning air which 
filled my dressing-room, pregnant with the balms and odours 
of the hundred sweet-smelling flowers and plants that em- 
bellished the shrubberies. The repose of the Sabbath seemed 
to rest on man and beast ; the bees and humming-birds that 
buzzed about the flowers, even at their usual pursuits seemed 
as if conscious of the sanctity of the day. I think no one 
can be insensible to the difference there is between a Sabbath '' 
in the country and any other day of the week. Most of 
this, doubtless, is the simple consequence of abstaining from 
labour ,* but, connected with the history of the festival, its 
usual observances, and the holy calm that appears to reign 
around, it is so very obvious and impressive, that a Sunday 
in a mild day in June, is to me ever a delicious resting-place, 
as a mere poetical pause in the bustling and turmoil of this 
world’s time. Such a day was that which succeeded the 
night through which we had just passed, and it came most 
opportunely to soothe the spirits, tranquillize the apprehen- 
sions, and afford a moment for sober reflection. 

There lay the smouldering ruins of the barn, it is tru© ; 
a blackened monument of a wicked deed ; but the mood 


I 

THE REDSKINS. 123 

which had produced this waste and wrong appeared to iiave 
passed away ; and, in all other respects, far and near, the 
farms of Ravensnest had never spread themselves before the 
eye in colours more in consonance with the general bene- 
volence of a bountiful nature. For a moment, as I gazed 
on the broad view, I felt all my earlier interests in it revive, 
and am not ashamed to own that a profound feeling of gra- 
titude to God came over me when I recollected it was by his 
Providence Fwas born the heir to such a scene, instead of 
having my lot cast among the serfs and dependants of other 
regions. 

After standing at the window a minute, in contemplation 
of that pleasing view, I drew back, suddenly and painfully 
conscious of the character and extent of the combination that 
existed to rob me of my rights in it.. America no longer 
seemed America to my eyes ; but, in place of its ancient 
submission to the law, its quick distinction between right 
and wrong, its sober and discriminating liberty, which 
equally avoided submission to the injustice of power, and the 
excesses of popular delusion, there had been substituted the 
rapacity of the plunderer, rendered formidable by the insi- 
dious manner in which it was interwoven with political ma- 
chinery, and the truckling of the wretches entrusted with 
authority; men who were playing into the hands of dema- 
gogues, solely in order to secure majorities to perpetuate 
their own influence. Was, then, the State really so corrupt 
as to lend itself to projects as base as those openly main- 
tained by the anti-renters 1 Far from it : four men out of 
five, if not a larger proportion, must be, and indeed are, sen- 
sible of the ills that their success would entail on the com- 
munity, and would lift up heart and hand to-morrow to put 
them down totally and without pity ; but they have made 
themselves slaves of the lamp ; have enlisted in the ranks 
oCpa7'f^, and dare not oppose their leaders, who wield them 
as Napoleon wielded his masses, to further private views, 
apostrophizing and affecting an homage to liberty all the 
while ! Such is the history of man ! 

When the family met in the breakfast-room, a singular 
tranquillity prevailed among us. As for my grandmother, I 
knew her spirit and early experience, and was not so much 
surprised to find her calm and reasonable ; but these quali- 


THE REDSKINS. 


124 

ties seemed imparled to her four young companions also. 
Pali could laugh, and yield to her buoyant spirits, just the 
same as if nothing had occurred, while my uncle’s other 
wards maintained a lady-like quiet, that denoted anything 
but apprehension. Mary Warren, however, surprised me 
by her air and deportment. There she sat, in her place at 
the table, looking, if possible, the most feminine, gentle, and 
timid of the four. I could scarcely believe that the blushing, 
retiring, modest pretty daughter of the rector could be the 
prompt, decided, and clear-headed young girl who had been 
of so much service to me the past night, and to whose cool- 
ness and discretion, indeed, we were all indebted for the roof 
that was over our heads, and some of us, most probably, for 
our lives. 

Notwithstanding this air of tranquillity, the breakfast was 
a silent and thoughtful meal. Most of the conversation was 
between my uncle and grandmother, and a portion of it re- 
lated to the disposal of the prisoners. There was no magis- 
trate within several miles of the Nest, but those who were 
tainted with anti-rentism ; and to carry Seneca and his com- i 
panion before a justice of the peace of this character, would I 
be, in effect, to let them go at large. Nominal bail would 
be taken, and it is more than probable the constable em- 
ployed would have suffered a rescue, did they even deem it 
necessary to go through this parade of performing their du- 
ties. My uncle, consequently, adopted the following plan. 

He had caused the two incendiaries to be transferred to the 
bid farm-house, which happened to contain a perfectly dry 
and empty cellar, and which had much of the security of a 
dungeon, 4^^ out the usual defects of obscurity and damp- 
ness. The red-men had assumed the office of sentinels, one 
having his station at the door, while another watched near 
a window which admitted the light, while it was scarcely 
large enough to permit the human body to squeeze through 
it. The interpreter had received instructions from the agent 
to respect the Christian Sabbath ; and no movement being 
contemplated for the day, this little duty just suited their 
lounging, idle habits, when in a state of rest. Food and 
water, of course, had not been forgotten ; and there my 
uncle Ro had left that portion of the business, intending to 
have the delinquents carried to a distant magistrate, one of 


THE REDSKINS. 


125 


I 

i 


I 

I 


the Judges of the County, early on Monday morning. As 
for the disturbers of the past night, no signs of them were 
any longer visible ; and there being little extensive cover 
near the Nest, no apprehension was felt of any surprise. 

We were still at breakfast, when the tone of St. Andrew’s 
bell came floating, plaintively, through the air, as a sum- 
mons to prepare ourselves for the services of the day. It 
was. little more than a mile to the church, and the younger 
ladies expressed a desire to walk. My grandmother, at- 
tended by her son, therefore, alone used the carriage, while 
we young people went off in a body, on foot, half an hour 
before the ringing of the second bell. Considering the state 
of the country, and the history of the past night, I was 
astonished at my own indifference on this occasion, no less 
than at that of my charming companions ; nor was it long 
before I gave utterance to the feeling. 

“This America of ours is a queer place, it must be ad- 
mitted,” I cried, as wc crossed the lawn to take a foot-path 
that would lead us, by pleasant pastures, quite to the church- 
door without entering the high-way, except to cross it once ; 
“ here we have the whole neighbourhood as tranquil as if 
crime never disturbed it, though it is not yet a dozen hours 
since riot, arson, and perhaps murder, were in the contem- 
plation of hundreds of those who live on every side of us. 
The change is wonderful !” 

“ But, you will remember it is Sunday, Hugh,” put in 
Patt. “ All summer, when Sunday has come, we have had 
a respite from disturbances and fears. In this part of the 
country, the people are too religious to think of desecrating 
the Sabbath by violence and armed bands. Thq, anti-renters 
would lose more than they would gain by purslJfftg a differ- 
ent course.” 

I had little or no difficulty in believing this, it being no 
unusual thing, among us, to find observances of this nature 
clinging to the habits of thousands, long after the devout 
feeling which had first instilled it into the race has become 
extinct. Something very like it prevails in other countries, 
and among even higher and more intellectual classes, where it 
is no unusual thing to find the most profound outward respect 
manifested towards the altar and its rites, by men who live 
n the hourly neglect of the first and plainest commands of 
11 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


126 

the decalogue. We are not alone, therefore, in this phari 
saical spirit, which exists, in some mode or other, wherevei 
man himself is to be found. 

But, this equivocal piety was certainly manifested to a 
striking degree, that day, at Ravensnest. The very men 
who were almost desperate in their covetous longings ap- 
peared at church, and went through the service with as 
much seeming devotion as if conscious of no evil ; and a 
general truce appeared to prevail in the country, notwith- 
standing there must have been much bitterness of feeling 
among the discomfited. Nevertheless, I could detect in the 
countenances of many of the old tenants of the family, an 
altered expression, and a coldness of the eye, which bespoke 
anything but the ancient friendly feeling which had so long 
existed between us. The solution was very simple ; dema- 
gogues had stirred up the spirit — not of the Institutions, but 
— of covetousness, in their breasts ; and so long as that evil 
tendency predominated, there was little room for better 
feelings. 

“ Now, I shall have another look at the canopied pew,” 
I cried, as we entered the last field, on our way to the 
church. “ That offensive, but unoffending, object had 
almost gone out of my mind’s eye, until my uncle recol- 
lected it, by intimating that Jack Dunning, as he calls his 
friend and council, had written him it must come down.” 

“ I agree with Mr. Dunning altogether,” answered Mar- 
tha, quickly. “ I wish with all my heart, Hugh, you would 
order that hideous-looking thing to be taken away this very 
week.” 

“Why this earnestness, my dear Patt? There has the 
hideous thing been ever since the church was built, which 
is now these three-score years, and no harm has come of 
it, as I know.” 

“ It is harm to be so ugly. It disfigures the church ; 
and then I do not think distinctions of that sort are proper 
for the house of God. I know this ever has been my 
grandmother’s opinion; but finding her father-in-law and 
husband desirous of such an ornament, she consented in 
silence, during their lives.” 

“ What do you say to all this. Miss Warren,” I asked 
turning to my companion, for by some secret influence I 


THE REDSKINS. 127 

was walking at her side. “ Are you ‘ up canopy’ or ‘ down 
canopy ’ 1 ” 

“ ‘ Down canopy,’ ” answered Mary, firmly. “ I am of 
Mrs. Littlepage’s opinion, that churches ought to contain as 
little as possible to mark worldly distinctions. Such dis- 
tinctions are inseparable from life, I know ; but it is to pre- 
pare for death that w'e enter such buildings.” 

And your father. Miss Warren — have you ever heard 
him speak of my unfortunate pew?” 

Mary hesitated an instant, changed colour, then looked 
up into my face with a countenance so ingenuous and 
lovely, that I would have forgiven her even a severe com- 
ment on some act of folly of my own. 

“ My father is an advocate for doing away with pews 
altogether,” she answered, “ and, of course, can have no 
particular wish to preserve yours. He tells me, that in the | 
churches of the Romanists, the congregation sit, stand, or | 
kneel, promiscuously before the altar, or crowd around the f 

pulpit, without any distinctions of rank or persons. Surely, j 

that is better than bringing into the very temple the most 
pitiful of all worldly classifications, that of mere money.” j 

“It is better. Miss Warren; and I wish, with all. my 
heart, the custom could be adopted'here. But the church 
that might best dispense with the support obtained from 
pews, and which, by its size and architecture, is best fitted 
to set the example of a new mode, has gone on in the old 
way, I understand, and has its pews as well as another.” 

“ Do we get our custom from England, Hugh?” demand- 
ed Martha. 

“ Assuredly; as we do most others, good, bad and indif- 
ferent. The property-notion would be very dkely to prevail 
in a country like England ; and then it is not absolutely true 
that everybody sits in common, even in the churches of the 
continent of the old world. The Seigneur, under the old 
regime, in France, had Ins pew, usually; and high dignita- 
ries of the. State in no country are found mingling with the 
mass of worshippers, unless it be in good company. It is 
true, a duchesse will kneel in the crowd, in most Romish 
churches, in the towns, for there are too many such persons 
to accommodate all with privileged seats, and such honours 
are reserved for the very great ; but, in the country, there 


THE REDSKINS. 


128 

are commonly pews, in by-places, for the great personages ' 
of the neighbourhood. We are not quite so bad as we fancy 
ourselves, in this particular, though we might be better.” 

“ But, you will allow that a canopied pew is unsuited to 
this country, brother?” 

“ Not more to this, than to any other. I agree that it is 
unsuited to all places, of worship, where the petty differences 
between men, which are created by their own usages, should 
sink into insignificance, in the direct presence, as it might 
be, of the power of God. But, in this country, I find a 
spirit rising, which some persons would call the ‘spirit of i 
the Institutions,’ that is for ever denying men rewards, and | 
honours, and credit exactly in the degree in which they de- ; 
serve them. The moment a citizen’s head is seen above the ; 
crowd of faces around him, it becomes the mark of rotten 
eggs, as if he were raised in the pillory, and his fellow- 
creatures would not tolerate any difference in moral stature.” 

“ How do you reconcile that with the great number of 
Catos, and Brutuses, not to say of the Gracchi, that are to 
be found among us?” asked Mary Warren, slily. ' 

“ Oh ! these are the mere creatures of party — great men 
for the nonce. They are used to serve the purposes of fac- 
tions, and are be-greated for the occasion. Thus it is, that 
nine-tenths of the Catos you mention, are forgotten, even by 
name, every political lustrum. But let a man rise, inde- 
pendently of the people^ by his own merit, and see how the 
people will tolerate him. Thus it is with my pew — it is a 
great pew, and become great without any agency of the 
‘ folks ;’ and the ‘ folks’ don’t like it.” | 

The girls laughed at this sally, as light-hearted, happy 
girls will laugh at anything of the sort ; and Patt put in her 
retort, in her own direct, spirited manner. 

“ It is a great ugly thing, if that concession will flatter 
your vanity,” she said, “and I do entreat it may come 
down greatly, this present week. Really, you can have no 
notion, Hugh, how much talk it has made of lated’ 

“ I do not doubt it, my dear. The talk is all aimed a 
the leases ; everything that can be thought of, being dragged 
into the account against us poor landlords, in order to^ren- 
der our cause unpopular, and thus increase the chances of 
robbing us with impunity. The good people of this State 


THE REDSKINS. 


129 

little imagine that the very evil that the enemies of the in- 
stituiions have long 'predicted, and which their friends have 
as warmly repudiated, are now actively at work amouQ us, 
and that the great experiment is in imminent danger of 
failing, at the very moment the people are loudly exulting 
in its success. Let this attempt on property succeed, ever 
so indirectly, and it will be followed up by others, 

WHICH WILL AS INEVITABLY DRIVE US INTO DESPOTISM, AS 
A REFUGE AGAINST ANARCHY, AS EFFECT SUCCEEDS TO 

CAUSE. The danger exists, now, in its very worst form — 
that of political demagogueism — and must be met, face to 
face, and put down manfully, and on true principles, or, in 
my poor judgment, we are gone. Cant is a prevailing vice 
of the nation, more especially political and religious cant, 
and cant can never be appeased by concessions. My cano- 
py shall stand, so long as anti-rentism exists at Ravensnest, 
or be torn down by violence; when men return to their 
senses, and begin to see the just distinctions between meum 
and tuum, the cook may have it for oven-wood, any day in 
the week.” 

As we were now about to cross the stile that communi- 
cated wdth the highway, directly in front of the church, the 
conversation ceased, as unsuited to the place and the occa- 
sion. The congregation of St. Andrew’s was small, as is 
usually the case with the country congregations of its sect, 
which are commonly regarded with distrust by the descend- 
ants of the Puritans in particular, and not unfrequently with 
strong aversion. The rowdy religion — half-cant, half-blas- 
phemy — that Cromwell and his associates entailed on so 
many Englishmen, but which was not without a degree of 
ferocious, narrow-minded sincerity about it, after all, has 
probably been transmitted to this country, with more of its 
original peculiarities than exist, at the present day, in any 
other part of the world. Much of the narrow-mindedness 
; remains ; but, unhappily, when liberality does begin to show 
j itself in these sects, it is apt to take the character of latitu- 
I dinarianism. In a word, the exaggerations and false prin- 
i ciples that were so common among the religious fanatics of 
' the American colonies in the seventeenth century, which 
burnt witches, hanged Quakers, and denounced all but the 
elect few, are now running their natural race, with the goal 


THE REDSKINS. 


130 

of infidelity in open view before them.. Thus will it be, also, 
with the abuses of political liberty, which must as certainly 
terminate in despotism, unless checked in season ; such 
being, not the spirit of the Institutions,” but the tendency 
of human nature, as connected with everything in which the 
right is abandoned to sustain the wrong. 

Mr. Warren, I found, was a popular preacher, notwith- 
standing the disfavour with which his sect was generally 
regarded. A prejudiced and provincial people was natu- 
rally disposed to look at everything that differed from their 
own opinions and habits with dislike ; and the simple cir- 
cumstance that he belonged to a church that possessed bish- 
ops, was of itself tortured into a proof that his sect favoured 
aristocracy and privileged classes. It is true that nearly 
every other sect in the country had orders in the church, 
under the names of ministers, elders, and deacons, and was 
just as liable to the same criticism ; but then they did not 
possess bishops, and having that which we do not happen to 
have ourselves, usually constitutes the gist of an offence, in 
cases of this sort. Notwithstanding these obstacles to popu- 
larity, Mr. Warren commanded the respect of all around him; 
and, strange as it may seem, none the less because, of all 
the clergy in that vicinity, he alone had dared to rebuke the 
spirit of covetousness that was abroad, and which it suits the 
morals of some among us to style the “ spirit of the Institu- 
tions a duty he had discharged on more than one occa- 
sion, with great distinctness and force, though temperately 
and under the full influence of a profound feeling of Chris- 
tian charity. This conscientious course had given rise to 
menaces and anonymous letters, the usual recourse of the 
mean and cowardly ; but it had also increased the weight 
of his character, and extorted the secret deference of many 
who would gladly have entertained a different feeling towards 
him, had it been in their power. 

My grandmother and uncle were already seated in the 
canopied pew when we pedestrians entered the church. 
Mary Warren turned into another aisle, and proceeded to 
the pew reserved for the rector, accompanied by my sister, | 
while the other two young ladies passed up to the chancel, j 
and took their customary places. I followed, and for the 
first time in my life was seated beneath the offensive canopy I 


T nE REDSKINS . 


131 j 

1 

vested with all the rights of ownership. By the term “ cano- 
py,” however, the reader is not to imagine anything like 
festooned drapery — crimson colours and gilded laces; our 
ambition had never soared so high. The amount of the dis- | 
tinction between this pew and any other in the church was | 
simply this : it was larger and more convenient than those 
around it, an advantage which any other might have equally 
enjoyed who saw fit to pay for it, as had beera the case with 
us, and it was canopied with a heavy, clunTisy, ill-shaped 
sort of a roof, that was a perfect caricature of the celebrated 
baldachino of St. Peter’s, in Rome. The first of these ad- 
vantages probably excited no particular envy, for it came 
within the common rule of the country, of “ play and pay;” 
but as for the canopy, that was aristocratic, and was not to 
be tolerated. Like the leasehold tenure, it was opposed to 
the ‘ spirit of the Institutions.’ It is true, it did no real harm, 
as an existing thing ; it is true, it had a certain use, as a i 

memorial of past opinions and customs ; it is true, it was j 

property, and could not be touched without interfering with j 

its privileges ; it is true, that every person who saw it se- j 

cretly felt there was nothing, after all, so very inappropriate ! 
in such a pew’s belonging to a Littlepage; and, most of all, j 

it was true that they who sat in it never fancied for a mo- j 

rnent that it made them any better or any worse than the 
rest of their fellow-creatures. There it was, however; and, 
next to the feudal character of a lease, it was the most 
offensive object then existing in Ravensnest. It may be 
questioned if the cross, which occupied the place that, ac- 
cording to provincial orthodoxy, a weathercock should have 
adorned, or Mr. Warren’s surplice, was o»3e-half as of- | 
fensive. _ j 

When Braised my head, after the private devotions which j 
are customary with us semi-papishes, on entering a place j 
of worship, and looking around me, I found ‘hat the build- 
ing was crowded nearly to overflowing. A second glance 
told me that nearly every eye was fastened on myself. At 
first, the canopy having been uppermost so lately in my 
mind, I fancied that the looks were directed at that; but I 
soon became satisfied that I, in my own unworthy person, 
was their object. I shall not stop to relate most of the idle 
and silly reports that had got abroad, in con’f€Ction with the 


THE REDSKINS. 


132 

manner and reason of my disguised appearance in ihe ham- 
let, the preceding day, or in connection with anything else, 
i though one of those reports was so very characteristic, and 
so entirely peculiar to the subject in hand, that I cannot 
omit it. That report was simply a rumour that I had caused 
one of my own barns to be set on fire, the second night of 
my arrival, in order to throw the odium of the act on those 
“ virtuous and hard-working husbandmen,” who only main- 
tained an illegal and armed body on foot, just to bully and 
worry me out of my property. Yes, there I sat ; altogether 
unconscious of the honour done me ; regarded by quite half 
lhat congregation as the respected and just-minded youth, j 
j who had devised and carried out precisely such a rascally 
I scheme. Now, no one who has not had the opportunity to 
i compare, can form any idea how much more potent and 
I formidable is the American “ folks say,” than the vulgar ! 
I reports of any other state of society. The French on dit is | 
a poor, pitiful report, placed by the side of this vast lever, ; 
which, like that of Archimedes, only wants a stand for its | 
fulcrum, to move the world. The American “ folks say” j 
has a certain omnipotence, so long as it lasts, which arises ! 
from, not the spirit, but the character of the institutions, i 
themselves. In a country in which the people rule, ‘ folks’ I 
are resolved that their ‘ say’ shall not pass for nothing. So | 
- few doubt the justice of the popular decision, that holy writ, ! 
itself, has not, in practical effect, one-half the power that I 
really belongs to one of these reports, so long as it suits the ! 
common mind to entertain it. Few dare resist it; fewer | 
still call in question its accuracy ; though, in sober truth, i 

is hardly ever right. It makes and unmakes reputation, for i 
the time being hienentendu; it even makes and unmakes 
! patriots, themselves. In short, though never quite truth, 

I and not often very much like the truth, paradoxical as it ! 

I may appear, it is truth, and nothing but the truth, j9ro hac I 
j rice. Everybody knows, nevertheless, that there is no per- | 
manency to what “ folks say” about anything ; and that j 
‘folks’ frequently, nay, almost invariably, “ unsay” what i 
has been said six months before ; yet, all submit to the au- 
thority of its dicta^ so long as ‘ folks’ choose to ‘ say.’ The ’ 
only exception to this rule, and it merely proves it, is in the ^ 
case of political parties, when there are always two “ folks 


THE REDSKINS. 


133 

say” which flatly contradict each other ; and sometimeg 
there are half-a-dozen, no two of which arc ever precisely 
•alike! 

There I sat, as I afterwards learned, “ the observed of 
all observers,” merely because it suited the purposes of those 
who wished to get away my estate to raise various reports to 
my prejudice, — not one of which, I am happy to have it in 
my power to say, was in any manner true. The first good 
look that I took at the congregation satisfied me that very 
much the larger part of it consisted of those who did not 
belong to St. Andrew’s church. Curiosity, or some worse 
feeling, had trebled the number of Mr. Warren’s hearers 
that day, — or, it might be more correct to say, of my ob- 
servers. 

There was no other interruption to the services than that 
which was produced by the awkwardness of so many who 
were strangers to the ritual. The habitual respect paid to 
religious rites kept every one in order; and, in the midst of 
a feeling that was as malignant and selfish as well could 
exist under circumstances of so little provocation, I was safe 
from violence, and even from insult. As for myself, little 
was or could be known of my character and propensities at 
Ravensnest. School, college, and travelling, with wintei 
residences in town, had made me a sort of stranger in my 
own domain, and I was regarded through the covenants of 
my leases, rather than through any known facts. The 
same was true, though in a less degree, with my uncle, who 
had lived so much abroad as to be considered a sort of half 
foreigner, and one who preferred other countries to his own. 
This is an offence that is rarely forgiven by the masses in 
America, though it is probably the mos-t venial sin that one 
who has had the opportunities of comparing can commit. Old 
nations offer so many more inducements than young nations 
to tempt men of leisure and cultivation to reside in them, 
that it is not surprising the travelled American should pre- 
fer Europe to his own quarter of the world; but the jealousy 
of a provincial people is not apt to fotgive this preference. 
For myself, I have heard it said, and I believe it to be true, 
to a certain extent, that countries on the decline, supposing 
them to have been once at the summit of civilization, make 
pleasanter abodes for the idler than nations on the advance. 

VoL. II.— 12 


"I 


I 134 THE REDSKINS. 

j This is one of the reasons why Italy. attracts so many more 
i visiters than England, though climate must pass for some- 
i thing in such a comparison. But these long absences, and 
I supposed preferences for foreign life, had made my uncle 
i Ro, in one sense, unpopular with the mass, which has been 
taught to believe, by means of interested and fulsome eulo- 
I gies on their own state of society, that it implies something 
more than a want of taste, almost a want of principle, to 
prefer any other. This want of popularity, however, was 
a good deal relieved by a wide and deep conviction of my 
uncle’s probity, as well as of his liberality, his pUrse having 
no more string to it than General Harrison’s door was 
thought to have of a latch. But the case was very different 
with my grandmother. The early part of her life had been 
spent at the Nest, and it was impossible so excellent a wo- 
man could be anything but respected. She had, in truth, 

I been a sore impediment with the anti-renters ; more espe- 
I cially in carrying out that part of their schemes which is 
I connected with traduction, and its legitimate offspring, pre- 
judice. It would hardly do to traduce this noble-minded, - 
charitable, spirited, and just woman ; yet, hazardous as the 
experiment must and did seem, it was attempted, and not 
altogether without success. She was accused of an aristo- 
cratic preference of her own family to the families of other 
people. Patt and I, it was urged, were only her grand- 
children, and had ample provision made for us in other 
estates besides this, — and a woman of Mrs. Littlepage’s 
time of life, it was said, who had one foot in the grave, 
ought to have too much general philanthropy to give a pre- 
ference to the interests of mere grandchildren, over the inte- 
rests of the children of men who had paid her husband and 
I sons rent, now, for quite sixty years. This attack had 

I come from the pulpit, too, or the top of a molasses hogs- 

I head, which was made a substitute for a pulpit, by an itine- 

I rant preacher, who had taken a bit of job-work, in which 

I the promulgation of the tenets of the gospel and those of 

anti-rentism was the great end in view. 

As I have said, my good grandmother suffered somewhat 
in public estimation, in consequence of this assault. It is 
true, had any one openly charged the circulators of this silly 
calumny with their offence, they would have stoutly denied 


THE REDSKINS. 


135 

it ; but it was none the less certain that this charge, among 
a hundred others, varying from it only in degree, and not 
at all in character, was industriously circulated in order 
to render the Littlepages unpopular; unpopularity being 
among us the sin that is apt to entail all the evil consequences 
of every other offence. 

The reader who is not acquainted with the interior of our 
social habits, must not suppose that I am colouring for effect. 
So far from this, I am quite conscious of having kept the 
tone of the picture down, it being an undeniable truth that 
nothing of much interest, now-a-days, is left to the simple 
decision of principles and laws, in this part of the country at 
least. The supremacy of numbers is so great, that scarce 
a private suit of magnitude is commitled to a jury without 
attempts, more or less direct, to influence the common mind 
in favour of one side or the other, in the hope that the jurors 
will be induced to think as the majority thinks. In Europe, 
it is known that judges were, nay, visited and solicited 
by the parties ; but, here, it is the public that must be treated 
in the same way. I am far from wishing to blazon the de- 
fects of my own country, and I know from observation, that 
corresponding evils, differing only in their exterior aspects, 
and in their mode of acting, exist elsewhere; but these are 
the forms in which some of our defects present themselves, 
and he is neither a friend to his country, nor an honest man, 
who wishes them to be bundled up and cloaked, instead of 
being exposed, understood, and corrected. This notion of 
‘ nil nisi bene' has done an infinite degree of harm to the 
country ; and, through the country, to freedom. 

I do not think the worship of the temple amounted to any 
great matter that day in St. Andrew’s Church, Ravensnest. 
Quite half the congregation was blundering through the 
liturgy, and every man who lost his place in the prayer- 
book, or who could not findlt at all, seemed to fancy it was 
quite sufficient for the ritual of us semi-papists if he kept his 
eye on me and my canopied pew. Flow many pharisees 
were present, who actually believed that 1 had caused my 
own barn to be burned, in order to throw opprobrium on the 
* virtuous,’ ‘ honest,’ and ‘ hard-working’ tenants, and who 
gave credit to the stories affecting my title, and all the rest 


-1 


136 THE REDSKINS. 

of the stuff that calculating cupidity had set afloat in the 
country, I have no way of knowing; but subsequent circum- 
stances have given me reason to suppose they were not a 
few. A great many men left the House of God that morn- 
ing, I make no doubt, whose whole souls were wrapped up 
in effecting an act of the grossest injustice, professing to 
themselves to thank God that they were not as wicked as 
the being whom they desired to injure. 

I stopped to say a word to Mr. Warren, in the vestry- 
room, after the people were dismissed, for he had not passed 
the night with us at the Nest, though his daughter had 
After we had said a word about the occurrence of the morn- 
ing, the good rector, having heard a rumour of the arrest of 
certain incendiaries, without knowing who they were, I 
made a more general remark or two previously to quitting 
the place. 

“Your congregation was unusually large this morning, 
sir,” I said, smiling, “ though not altogether as attentive as 
it might have been.” 

“ I owe it to your return, Mr, Littlepage, aided by the 
events of the past day or two. At one moment I was afraid | 
that some secret project was on foot, and that the day and j 
place might be desecrated by some scene of disgraceful vio- ! 
lence. All has gone off well in that respect, however, and 
I trust that no harm will come of this crowd. We Ameri- 
cans have a respect for sacred things which will ordinarily 
protect the temple.” j 

“ Did you, then, think St. Andrew’s ran any risk to-day, ! 

sirr •' 1 

Mr. Warren coloured a little, and he hesitated an instant 
before he answered., 

“ You doubtless know, young sir,” he said, “ the nature 
of the feeling that is now abroad in the country. With a 
view to obtain its ends, anti-rentism drags every auxiliary 
it can find into its ranks, and, among other things, it has 
assailed your canopied pew. I own, that, at first, I appre- | 
bended some assault might be contemplated on I 

“ Let it come, sir; the pew shall be altered on a general | 
and right principle, but not until it is let alone by envy, ^ 
malice, and covetousness. It would be wors'e to make a con- 


THE REDSKINS. 137 

cession to these than to let the pew stand another half cen- 
tury.” 

With these words in my mouth, I took my leave, hasten- 
ing on to overtake the girls in the fields. 


CHAPTER X. 

“ There is a pure republic — wild, yet strong — 

A ‘ fierce democracie,’ where all are true 

To what themselves have voted, — right or wrong, 

And to their laws denominated blue; 

(If red, they might to Draco’s code belong.) 

HALLE’fcK. 

Such was my haste in quitting the church, that I did not 
turn to the right or the left. 1 saw the light, but well- 
rounded form of Mary Warren loitering along with the rest 
of the party, seemingly in waiting for me to join them ; 
and crossing the road, I sprang upon the stile, and thence 
to the ground, coming up with the girls at the next instant. 

“ What is the meaning of the crowd, Hugh?” asked my 
sister, pointing down the road with the stick of her parasol, 
as she put the question. 

“ Crowd ! I have seen no crowd. Everybody had led; 
the church before I quitted it, and all has gone off peacea- 
bly. Ha ! sure enough, that does look like a crowd yonder 
in the highway. It seems an organized meeting, by George ! 
Yes, there is the chairman, seated on the upper rail of the 
fence, and the fellow with a bit of paper in his hand is 
doubtless the secretary. Very American, and regular, all 
that ! Some vile project is hatching, I ’ll answer for it, under 
the aspect of an expression of public opinion. See, there is 
€l chap speaking, and gesticulating manfully 1” 

We all stopped, for a moment, and stood looking at the 
•crowd, which really had all the signs of a public meeting 
about it. There it had been, the girls told me, ever since 
they had quitted the church, and seemingly engaged much 
as it was at that moment. The spectacle was curious, and 
the day being fine, while time did not press, we lingered in 
12 ^ 


138 THEREDSKINS. 

the fields, occasionally stopping to look behind us, and note 
what was going on in the highway. 

In this manner, we might have walked half the distance 
to the Nest, when, on turning to take another look, we per- 
ceived that the crowd had dispersed ; some driving oIT in 
the ever-recurring one-horse wagon, some on horseback 
and others on foot. Three men, however, were walking 
fast in our direction, as if desirous of overtaking us. They 
had already crossed the stile, and were on the path in the ^ 
field, a route rarely or never taken by any but those who 
desired to come to the house. Under the circumstances, I 
determined at once to stop and wait for them. First feeling 
in my pocket, and making sure of the “ revolver,” which is 
getting to be an important weapon, now that private battles 
are fought not only “ yard-arm and yard-arm,” but by 
regular “ broadsides,” starboard and larboard, I intimated 
niy intention to the girls. 

“ As these men are evidently coming in quest of me,” I 
remarked, “ it may be as well, ladies, for you to continue 
your walk towards home, while I wait for them on this 
stile.” 

“ Very true,” answered Patt. “ They can have little to 
say that we shall wish to hear, and you will soon overtake 
us. Remember, we dine at two on Sundays, Hugh ; the 
evening service commencing at four, in this month.” 

“ No, no,” said Mary Warren, hurriedly, “ we ought not, 
cannot., quit Mr. Littlepage. These men may do him sonie 
harm.” 

I was delighted with this simple, natural manifestation of 
interest, as well as with the air of decision with which it 
was made. Mary, herself, coloured at her own interest, 
but did not the less maintain the ground she had taken. 

“ Why, of what use can we be to Hugh, dear, even ad- 
mitting what you say to be true ?” answered Patt ; “ it were 
better for us to hurry on to the house, and send those here 
who can assist him in such a case, than stand by idle and 
useless.” 

As if profiting by this hint. Miss Coldbrooke and Miss 
Marston, who were already some little distance in advance, 
went off almost on a run, doubtless intending to put my 
sister’s project into execution. But Mary Warren stood 


THE REDSKINS. 


139 

firm, and Patt would not desert her friend, whatever might 
have been her disposition to treat me with less consideration. 

“ It is true, we may not be able to assist Mr. Littlepage, 
should violence be attempted,” the first remarked ; “ but vi. 
olence is, perhaps, what is least to be apprehended. These 
wretched people so little regard truth, and they will be three 
to one, if your brother be lel’t alone ; that it is better we stay 
and hear what is said, in order that we may assert what 
the facts really were, should these persons see fit to pervert 
them, as .too often happens.” 

Both Patt and myself were struck with the prudence and 
sagacity of this suggestion ; and the former now came quite 
near to the stile, on which I was still standing, with an air 
as steady and resolute as that of Mary Warren herself. Just 
then the three men approached. Two of them I knew by 
name, though scarcely in person, while the third was a 
total stranger. The two of whom I had some knowledge, 
were named Bunce and Mowatt, and were both tenants of 
my own ; and, as I have since learned, warm anti-renters. 
The stranger was a travelling demagogue, who had been at 
the bottom of the whole affair connected with the late meet- 
ing, and who had made his two companions his tools. The 
three came up to the stile, with an air of great importance, 
nor could the dignity of their demeanour have been greater 
had they been ambassadors Extraordinary from the Emperor 
of China. 

“ Mr. Littlepage,” commenced Mr. Bunce, with a par- 
ticularly important physiognomy, “ there has beeti a meet- 
ing of the public, this morning, at which these resolutions 
was passed. We have been appointed a committee to de- 
liver a copy of them to you, and our duty is now performed, 
by handing you this paper.” 

“ Not unless I see fit to accept it, I presume, sir,” was 
my answer. 

“ I should think no man, in a free country, would refuse 
to receive a set of resolutions that has been passed by a 
meeting of his fellow-citizens.” 

“ That might depend on circumstances ; the character of 
the resolutions, in particular. The freedom of the country 
it is, precisely, which gives one man the-same right i© say 


THE REDSKINS. 


140 

he cares nothing about your resolutions, as it does you to ! 
pass them.” 

“ But you have not looked at the resolutions, sir ; and 
until you do, you cannot know how you may like them.” 

“ That is very true ; but I have looked at their bearers, 
have seen their manner, and do not quite like the assump- 
tion of power which says any body of men can send me 
resolutions, whether I like to receive them or not.” 

This declaration seemed to strike the committee aghast ! 
The idea that one man should hesitate to submit himself to 
a yoke imposed by a hundred, was so new and inconceiva- 
ble to those who deem majorities all in all, that they hardly 
knew how to take it.* At first there was an obvious dis 
position to resent the insult ; then came reflection which 
probably told them that such a course might not prove so 
well, the whole terminating in a more philosophical deter- 
mination of getting along easily. 

“ Am I to understand, Mr. Littlepage, that you refuse to 
accept the resolutions of a public meeting?” 

“ Yes ,' of half-a-dozen public meetings put together, if 
those resolutions are offensive, or are offered offensively.” 


* The prevalence of the notion of the omnipotence of majorities, in 
America, is so wide-spread and deep, among the people in general, a? 
to form a distinctive trait in the national character. It is doing an 
infinity of mischief, by being mistaken for the governing principle of 
the institutions, when in fact it is merely a necessary expedient to de- j 
cide certain' questions which must be decided by somebody, and in some ! 
mode or other. Kept in its proper sphere, the use of majorities is re- I 

plete with justice, so far as justice can be exercised among men* 
abused, it opens the highway to the most intolerable tyranny. As a 
matter of course, the errors connected with this subject vary through 
all the gradations of intellect and selfishness. The following anecdote 
will give the reader some notion how the feeling impressed a stranger 
shortly after his arrival in this country. 

A year or two since, the writer had in his service an Irishman who 
had been only two years in the country. It was a part of this man’s 
duty to look after the welfare of certain pigs, of which one occupied j 

the position of a ‘ runt.’ « Has your honour looked at the pigs lately,” j 

said the honest fellow, one day. “ No, not lately, Pat ; is there any 
change.” “That is there, indeed, sir, and a great change. The little 
fellow is getting the majority of the rest, and will make the best hog 
of ’em all!” — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 


14 ] 

“As to the resolutions, you can know nothing, having 
never seen them. Of the rTght\)rany number of the people 
to pass such resolutions as they may think proper, I presume 
there can be no question.” ' 

“ Of that right, sir, there is a very great question, as has 
been settled within the last few years, in our own Courts. 
But, even if the right existed, and in as broad a way as you 
seem to think, it would not form a right to force these reso- 
lutions on me.” 

“ I am, then, to tell the people you refuse even to reaa 
their resolutions, ’Squire Littlepage.” 

“ You can tell them what you please, sir. I know of no 
people, except in the legal sense, and under the limited 
powers that they exercise by law. As for this new'power, 
which is rising up in the country, and has the impudence to 
call itself the people, though composed of little knots of men 
got together by management, and practised on by falsehood, 
it has neither my respect nor dread ; and as I hold it in 
contempt, I shall treat it with contempt, whenever it comes 
in my way.” 

“ I am, then, to tell the people of Ravensnest, you hold 
them in contempt, sir.” 

“ I authorize you to tell the people of Ravensnest nothing, 
as coming from me, for I do not know that the people of 
Ravensnest have employed you. If you will ask me, re- 
spectfully, as if you were soliciting a favour instead of de- 
manding a right, to read the contents of the paper you hold 
in your hand, I may be willing to comply. What I object 
to, is a handful of men’s getting together, setting themselves 
up as the people, pretending to authority in that capacity, 
and claiming a right to force their notions on other folks.” 

The three committee-men now drew back a few paces, 
and consulted together apart, for two or three minutes. 
While they were thus employed, I heard the sweet gentle 
voice of Mary Whrren say at my elbow — “ Take their reso- 
lutions, Mr. Littlepage, and get rid of them. I dare say 
they are very silly, but you will get rid of them all the 
sooner, by receiving the paper.” This was woman’s ad- 
vice, which is a little apt to err on the side of concession, 
when her apprehensions are aroused ; but I was spared the 
pain of not complying with it, by the altered tone of the trio, 


THE REDSKINS. 


' 142 

who now came up to the stile again, having apparently 
come to a final decision in the premises. 

“ Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior,” said Bunce in a 
solemn voice, and in a manner as precise as if he were 
making some legal tender that was of the last importance , 
and which required set phrases, “ I now ask you, in a 
most respectful manner, if you will consent to receive this 
paper. It contains certain resolutions, passed with great 
unanimity by the people of Ravensnest, and which may be 
found to affect you. I am directed respectfully to ask you, 
if you will accept this copy of the said resolutions,” 

I cut the rest of the speech short by receiving the prof- 
fered paper, and I thought all three of the worthy ambassa- 
dors looked disappointed at my having done so. This gave 
a new turn to my ideas, and had they now demanded their 
resolutions back again, they should not have had them, so 
long as the revolvers could do their duty. For a moment, 
I do believe Bunce was for trying the experiment. He and 
his companions would have been delighted to have it in 
their power to run up and down the country crying out that 
the aristocrat-landlord, young Littlepage, held the people in 
contempt, and had refused even to accept the resolutions 
they had deigned, in their majesty, to pass. As it was, 
however, I had sufficiently rebuked the presumption of these 
pretenders to liberty, avoided all the consequences of their 
clamour in that behalf, and had an opportunity to gratify a 
curiosity to know what the leaders of the meeting had been 
about, and to read their resolutions. I say, the leaders of 
the meeting, for it is very certain the meetings themselves, 
on all such occasions, have no more to do with the forming, 
or entertaining the opinions that are thus expressed, than if 
they had been in Kamtschatka, the whole time. Folding 
the paper, therefore, and putting it in my pocket, I bowed 
, to the committee, saying, as I descended the stile on the 
other side of the fence — 

“ It is well, gentlemen ; if the resolutions require any no- 
tice, they’ll be sure to receive it. Public meetings held of a 
Sunday are so unusual in this part of the world, that this 
may have interest with that small portion of the State which 
does not dwell at Ravensnest.” 

I thought the committee was a little abashed ; but the 


THE REDSKINS. 


143 

stranger, or the travelling demagogue, caught at my words, 
and answered as I walked away, in company with Patt and 
Mary Warren — 

“ The better day, the better deed. The matter related to 
the Sabbath, and no time so suitable as the Sabbath to act 
on it.” 

I will own I was dying with curiosity to read the resolu- 
tions, but dignity prevented any such thing until we had 
reached a spot where the path led through a copse, that con- 
cealed us from observation. Once under that cover, how- 
ever, I eagerly drew out the paper, the two girls drawing 
near to listen, with as lively an interest as that 1 felt myself 
in the result. •- 

“ Here you may see at a glance,” I cried, shaking open 
the folds of the paper, “ the manner in which the people so 
often pass their resolutions ! All this writing has a very 
school-master air, and has been done with care and delibe- 
ration, whereas there was certainly no opportunity to make 
a copy as fair as this of anything out in the highway where 
the meeting was actually held. This^ proves that matters 
have been cut and dried for the sovereign people, who, like 
other monarchs, are saved a great deal of trouble by their 
confidential servants.” 

“ 1 dare say,” said Patt, two or three men down at the 
village prepared everything, and then brought their work 
up to the meeting to be read and approved, and to go forth 
as public sentiment.” 

“ If it were only honestly approved by even those who 
heard it read, it would be another matter ; -but two-thirds of 
every meeting are nothing but dough-faces, that are moulded 
to look whichever way the skilful manager may choose. But 
let us see what these notable resolutions are ; we may like 
them, possibly, after having read them.” 

“ It is so extraordinary to have a public meeting of a 
Sunday in this part of the world 1” exclaimed Mary 
Warren. 

I now set about reading the contents of the paper, which, 
at a glance, I saw had been very carefully prepared for pub- 
lication, and no doubt would soon figure in some of the 
journals. Fortunately, this business has been so much over- 
done, and so many meetings are held that flatly contradict 


THE REDSKINS. 


144 

each other, though all represent public sentiment, fire ia 
made so effectually to fight fire, that the whole procedure is 
falling into contempt, and the public is actually losing the 
great advantage which, under a more temperate use of its 
power, it might possess, by making known from time to 
time, as serious occasions offered, its true opinions and 
wishes. As things actually are, every man of intelligence 
is fully aware that simulated public opinions are much the 
most noisy and active in the country, and he regards nothing 
of the sort of which he hears or reads, unless he happen to 
know' something of the authority. It is the same with the 
newspaper press generally ; into such deep discredit has it 
fallen, that not only is its power to do evil much curtailed, 
but it has nearly lost all power to do good ; for, by indulging 
in licentiousness, and running into the habit of crying j 
“ wolf,” nobody is disposed to believe, were the beast actually i 
committing its ravages in the flocks of the nation. There 
are but two ways for a man to regain a position from which 
he has departed ; the one is by manfully retracing his steps, 
and the other is by making a circuit so complete that 
all who choose to watch him may see and understand all 
sides of him, and estimate him accordingly. The last is 
likely to be the career of demagogueism and the press ; both 
of which have already gone so far as to render retreat next 
to impossible, and who can only regain any portion of public 
confidence by being satisfied with completing their circuit, 
and falling in the rear of the nation, content to follow those 
whom it has been their craving ambition to lead. 

“ At a meeting of the citizens of Ravensnest,” I began to 
read aloud, “spontaneously convened, June 22d, 1845, in 
the public highway, after attending divine service in the . 
Episcopal meeting-house, according to the forms of the esta- 
blished denomination of England, on the church and state 
system, Onesiphoras Hayden, Esquire, was called to the 
chair, and Pulaski Todd, Esquire, was appointed Secretary. 
After a luminous and eloquent exposition of the objects of 
the meeting, and some most pungent strictures on aristociacy 
and the rights of man, from Demosthenes Hewlett and John 
Smith, Esquires, the following expression of public senti 
ment was sustained by an undivided unanimity : — Resolved 
that a temperate expression of public opinion is useful to th« 


THE REDSKINS. 


145 


1 


1 


I 


rights of freemen, and is one of the most precious privileges 
of freedom, as the last has been transmitted to us in a free 
country by our ancestors, who fought and bled for free and 
equal institutions on free and equal grounds. 

“ Resolved, That we prize this privilege, and shall ever 
watch over its exercise with vigilance, the price of liberty. 

“ Resolved, That, as all men are equal in the eyes of the 
law, so are they much more so in the eyes of God. 

“ Resolved, That meeting-houses are places constructed 
for the convenience of the people, and that nothing ought to 
be admitted into them that is opposed to public sentiment, 
or which can possibly offend it. 

“ Resolved, That, in our judgment, the seat that' is good 
enough for one man is good enough for another ; that we 
know no difference in families and races, and that pews 
ought to be constructed on the principles of equality, as well 
as laws. 

“ Resolved, That canopies are royal distinctions, and quite 
unsuited to republicans ; and most of all, to republican meet- 
ing-houses. 

“ Resolved, That religion should be adapted to the insti- 
tutions of a country, and that a republican form of govern- 
ment is entitled to a republican form of religion ; and that 
we do not see the principles of freedom in privileged seats 
in the House of God.” 

“ That resolution has been got up as a commentary on 
what has been circulated so much, of late, in the newspa- 
pers,” cried Mary Warren, quickly ,* “ in which it has been 
advanced, as a recommendation of certain sects, that their 
dogmas and church-government are more in harmony with 
republicanism than certain others, our own church in- 
cluded.” 

“ One would think,” I answered, “ if this conformity be 
a recommendation, that it would be the duty of men to make 
Iheirinstitutions conform to the church, instead of the church’s 
conforming to the institutions.” 

“ Yes ; but it is not the fashion to reason in. this way, 
now-a-days. Prejudice is just as much appealed to in mat- 
ters connected with religion, as with anything else.” 

“ Resolved,” I continued to read, “ That in placing a 
canopy over his pew, in St, Andrew’s meeting-house, Ra* 


VoL. II. — 13 


THE REDSKINS. 


146 

vensnest, Gen. Cornelius Litllepage conformed to the spirit 
of a past age, rather than to the spirit of the present time, 
and that we regard its continuance there as an aristocratical 
assumption of a superiority that is opposed to the character 
of the government, offensive to liberty, and dangerous as an 
example.” 

“ Really that is too bad !” exclaimed Patt, vexed at heart, 
even while she laughed at the outrageous silliness of the 
resolutions, and all connected with them. “ Dear, liberal- 
minded grandpapa, who fought and bled for that very liberty 
about which these people cant so much, and who was actively 
concerned in framing the very institutions that they do not 
understand, and are constantly violating, is accused of being 
false to what were notoriously his own principles !” 

“ Never mind that, my dear ; there only remain three 
more resolutions ; let us hear them. ‘ Resolved, That we 
see an obvious connection between crowned heads, patents 
of nobility, canopied pews, personal distinctions, leasehold 
tenures, land-LoRDS^ days’ works, fat fowls, quarter-sales, 
three-lives leases, and Rent.’ 

“ Resolved, That we are of opinion that, when the owners 
of barns wish them destroyed, for any purpose whatever, 
there is a mode less alarming to a neighbourhood than by 
setting them on fire, and thus giving rise to a thousand re- 
ports and accusations that are wanting in the great merit of 
truth. 

“ Resolved, That a fair draft he made of these resolu- 
tions, and a copy of them delivered to one Hugh Roger Lit- 
tlepage, a citizen of Ravensnest, in the county of Washing- 
ton ; and that Peter Bunce, Esq., John Mowatt, Esq., and 
Hezekiah Trott, Esq., be a committee to see that this act 
be performed. 

Whereupon the meeting adjourned, sine die. Onesi- 
phorus Hayden, chairman ; Pulaski Todd, secretary.” 

“Whe-e-e-w!” I whistled, “here’s gunpowder enough 
for another Waterloo !” 

“ What means that last resolution, Mr. Littlepage ?” asked 
Mary Warren, anxiously. “ That about the barn.” 

“ Sure enough ; there is a latent meaning there which has 
its sting. Can the scoundrels intend to insinuate that 1 
caused that barn to be set on fire !” 


THE REDSKINS 


147 

“ If they should, it is scarcely more than they have at- 
tempted to do with every landlord they have endeavoured to 
rob,” said Patt, with spirit. “ Calumny seems a natural 
weapon of those who get their power by appealing to num- 
bers.” 

“ That is natural enough, my dear sister ; since prejudice 
and passion are quite as active agents as reason and facts, 
in the common mind. But this is a slander that shall be 
looked to. If I find that these men really wish to circulate a 
report that I caused my own barn to be set on fire — pshaw ! 
nonsense, after all ; have we not Newcome, and that other 
rascal in confinement, at this moment, for attempting to set 
fire to my house V' 

“Be not too confident, Mr. Littlepage,” said Mary, with 
an anxiety so pointed that I could not but feel its flattery — • 
“ my dear father tells me he has lost most of his confidence 
in innocence, except as One above all weaknesses shall be 
the judge : this very story may be got up expressly to throw 
distrust on your accusations against the two incendiaries 
you have taken in the act. Remember how much of the 
facts will depend on your own testimony.” 

“ I shall have you to sustain me. Miss Warren, and the 
juror is not living, who would hesitate to believe that to 
which you will testify. But here we are approaching the 
house ; we will talk no more on the subject, lest it distress 
my grandmother.” 

We found all quiet at the Nest, no report of any sort 
having come from the red-men. Sunday was like any other 
day to them, with the exception that they so far deferred to 
our habits, as to respect it, to a certain extent, while in our 
presence. Some writers have imagined that the aborigines 
of America are of the lost tribes of Israel ; but it seems to 
me that such a people could never have existed apart, unin- 
fluenced by foreign association, and preserved no tradition, 
no memorial of the Jewish Sabbath. Let this be as it may, 
John, who met us at the door, which we reached just after 
my uncle and grandmother, reported all quiet, so far as he 
knew anything of the state of the farm-buildings. 

“They got enough last night, I ’se thinking, Mr. Hugh, 
and has found out by this time, that it’s better to light a fire 
in one of their own cook-stoves, than come to light it on the 


THE REDSKINS. 


118 

floor of a gentleman’s kitchen. I never heard it said, sir 
that the Hamericans vv’as as much Hirish as they be Heng« 
lish, but to me they seems to grow every day more like the 
wild Hirishers, of whom we used to hear so much in Lun’un. 
Your honoured father, sir, would never have believed that 
his own dwelling would be entered, at night, by men who 
are his very neighbours, and who act like burglariouses, as 
if they were so many Newgate birds, — no. Why, Mr. 
Hugh, this ’Squire Newcome, as they call him, is an hattor- 
ney, and has often dined here at the Nest. I have ’anded 
him his soup, and fish, and wine, fifty times, just as if he 
was a gentleman, and to his sister. Miss Hopportunity, loo ; 
and they to come to set fire to the house, at midnight !” 

“ You do Miss Opportunity injustice, John ; for s/ie has 
not had the least connection with the matter.” 

“ Well, sir, nobody knows anything, now-a-days — I de- 
clare, my eyes be getting weak, or there is the young lady, 
at this very instant !” 

“Young lady! where? — you do not mean Opportunity 
Newcome, surely.” 

“ 1 does though, sir, and it ’s she, sure enough. If that 
is n’t Miss Hopportunity, the prisoner that the savages has 
got up in the cellar of the old farm-house, is n’t her 
brother.” 

John was quite right; there was Opportunity standing in 
the very path, and at the very spot where I had last seen 
her disappear from my sight, the past night. That spot 
was just where the path plunged into the wooded ravine, and 
so far was her person concealed by the descent, that we could 
only perceive the head, and the upper part of the body. The 
girl had shown herself just that much, in order to attract 
my attention, in which she had no sooner succeeded, than, 
by moving downward a few paces, she was entirely hid 
from sight. Cautioning John to say nothing of what had 
passed,! sprang down the steps, and walked in the direction 
of the ravine, perfectly satisfied I was expected, and far 
from certain that this visit did not portend further evil. 

The distance was so short that I was soon at the verge 
of the ravine, but when I reached it Opportunity had disap- 
peared. Owing to the thicket, her concealment was easily 
obtained, while she might be within a few yards from me, 


THE REDSKINS. 


149 

and I plunged downwards, bent only on ascertaining her 
object. One gleam of distrust shot across my mind, I will 
' own, as I strided down the declivity ; but it was soon lost in 
I the expectation and curiosity that were awakened by the ap- 
pearance of the girl. 

I believe it has already been explained, that in this part 
of the lawn a deep, narrow ravine had been left in wood, and 
that the bridle-path that leads to the hamlet had been carried 
directly through it, for effect. This^ patch of wood may be 
three or four acres in extent, following the course of the 
ravine until it reaches the meadows, and it contains three or 
four rustic seats, intended to be used in the warmer months. 
As Opportunity was accustomed to all the windings and 
I turnings of the place, she had posted herself near one of 
I these seats, which stood in a dense thicket, but so near the 
I main path as to enable her to let me know where she was 
to be found, by a low utterance of my name, as my tread 
I announced my approach. Springing up the by-path, I was 
I at her side in an instant. I do believe that, now she had so 
I far succeeded, the girl sunk upon the seat from inability to 
stand. 

“ Oh ! Mr. Hufrh !” she exclaimed, looking at me with a 
degree of nature and concern in her countenance that it was 
not usual to see there — “ Sen — my poor brother Sen — what 
have I done? — what have I done?” 

“ Will you answer me one or two questions. Miss Oppor- 
tunity, with frankness, under the pledge that the replies 
never shall be used to injure you or yours? This is a very 
serious affair, and should be treated with perfect frankness.” 

“ I will answer any thing to you — any question you can 
put me, though I might blush to do so — but,” laying her 
hand familiarly, not to say tenderly on my arm — “ why 
I should we be Mr. Hugh and Miss Opportunity to each 
j other, when we were so long Hugh and Op? Call me Op 
j again, and I shall feel that the credit of my family and the 
i happiness of poor Sen are, after all, in the keeping of a 
; true friend.” 

j “No one can be more willing to do this than myself, my 
i dear Op, and I am willing to be Hugh again. But, you 
know ail that has passed.” 

13 ^ 


150 THE REDSKINS. 

a [ (jo — yes, the dreadful news has reached us, and 
mother would n’t leave me a moment’s peace till I stole out 
again to see you.” 

“ Again ? — Was your mother, then, acquainted with the 
visit of last night?” 

“ Yes, yes — she knew it all, and advised it all.” 

“Your mother is a most thoughtful and prudent parent,” 
I answered, biting my lip, “ and I shall know hereafter 
how much I am indebted to her. To you, Opportunity, I 
owe the preservation of my house, and possibly the lives of 
all who are most dear to me.” 

“ Well, that ’s something, any how. There ’s no grief that 
has n’t its relief. But, you must know, Hugh, that I never 
could or did suppose that Sen himself would be so weak as 
to come in his own person on such an errand ! I did n’t 
want telling to understand that, in anti-rent times, fire and 
sword are the law, — but, take him in general. Sen is alto- 
gether prudent and cautious. I ’d a bit my tongue off before 
I ’d a got my own brother into so cruel a scrape. No, no — 
do n’t think so ill of me as to suppose I came to tell of Sen !” 

“ It is enough for me that I know how much trouble you 
took to warn me of danger. It is unnecessary for me to 
think of you in any other light than that of a friend.” 

“ Ah, Hugh ! how happy and merry we all of us used to 
be a few years since! That was before your Miss Cold- 
brookes, and Miss Marstons, and Mary Warrens ever saw the 
country. Then we did. enjoy ourselves, and I hope such 
times will return. If Miss Martha would only stick to old 
friends, instead of running after new ones, Ravensnest 
would be Ravensnest again.” 

“ You are not to censure my sister for loving her own 
closest associates best. She is several years our junior, 
you will remember, and was scarcely of an age to be our 
companion six years ago.” 

Opportunity had the grace to colour a little, for she had 
only used Patt as a cloak to make her assaults on me, and 
she knew as well as I did that my sister was good seven 
years younger than herself. This feeling, however, was 
but momentary, and she next turned to the real object of 
this visit. 



THE REDSKINS. 151 

What am I to tell mother, Hugh? — You will let Sen 
off, I know !” 

I reflected, for the first time, on the hardships of the 
case ; but felt a strong reluctance to allow incendiaries to 
escape. 

“ The facts must be known, soon, all over the town,” I 
remarked. 

“ No fear of that : they are pretty much known, already. 
News does fly/cis^, at Ravensnest, all must admit.” 

“ Ay, if it would only fly true. But, your brother can 
hardly remain here, after such an occurrence.” 

“ Lord ! How you talk ! If the law will only let him 
alone, who ’d trouble him for this? You havn’t been home 
long enough, to learn that folks don’t think half as 'much of 
setting fire to a house, in anti-rent times, as they ’d think of | 

a trespass, under the old-fashioned law. Anti-rent alters ; 

the whole spirit.” * | 

How true was this ! And we have lads among us, who \ 

have passed from their tenth to their eighteenth and twen- ? 

! tieth years, in a condition of society that is almost hope- 

i lessly abandoned to the most corrupting influence of all 

the temptations that beset human beings. It is not surpris- 
ing that men begin to regard arson as a venial offence, 
when the moral feeling of the community is thus unhinged, 
and boys are suffered to grow into manhood, in the midst j 
of notions so fatal to every thing that is just and safe. ] 

“ But the law itself will not be quite as complaisant as the 
folks.’ It will scarcely allow incendiaries to escape; and 
your brother would be compelled to flee the land.” 

“ What of that? How many go off, and stay off for a 
time; and that’s better than going up north to work at the 
new prison. I ’m not a bit afraid of Sen’s being hanged, for 
these an’t hanging times, in this country ; but it is some dis- 
grace to a family to have a member in the state’s prison. 

As for any punishment that is lasting, you can see how it 
is, as well as I. There ’ve been men murdered about anti- 
rentism, but. Lord ! the senators and assemblymen will 
raise such a rumpus, if you go to punish them, that it won’t 
be long, if things go on as they have, before it will be 
thought more honourable to be put in jail for shooting a 
peace-officer, than to stay out of it, for not having done it. 


THE REDSKINS. 


152 

Talk ’s all ; and if folks have a mind to make any thing hon- ' 
ourable, they ’ve only to say so often enough, to make it out.” 

Such were the notions of Miss Opportunity Nevvcome, 
on the subject of modern morals, and how far was she from 
the truth? I could not but smile at the manner in which 
she treated things, though there was a homely and practical 
common sense in her way of thinking, that was probably of 
more efficiency than would have been the case with a more 
refined and nicer code. She looked at things as they are, j 
and that is always something towards success. j 

As for myself, I was well enough disposed to consider ' 
Opportunity, in this unfortunate affair of the fire, for it 
would have been a cruel thing to suffer the girl to imagine 
she had been an instrument in destroying her brother. It 
is true, there is no great danger of a rogue’s being hanged, 
now-a-days, and Seneca was not sufficiently a gentleman, 
though very tenacious of the title,- to endanger his neck. 
Had he been a landlord, and caught lighting a fire on the 
kitchen-floor of one of the tenants, the State would not grow 
hemp enough for his execution ; but it was a very different 
thing to -catch a tenant at that work. I could not but ask 
myself, how many of the “ honourable gentlemen” at Albany 
would interfere in my behalf, had matters been reversed; for 
this is the true mode of arriving at the ‘ spirit of the institu- 
tions or,, rather, I have just as good a right to affirm such 
is their ‘spirit,’ as any one has to assert that the lease-hold 
tenure is opposed to them ; the laws and institutions them- 
selves, being equally antagonist to both. | 

The results of the interview I had with Opportunity were, 
Istly, — I kept my heart just where it was at its commence- 
ment, though I am not certain that it was in my own cus- 
tody ; 2dly, — The young lady left me much encouraged on 
the subject of the credit of the Newcomes, though I took 
very good care not to put myself in her power, by promis- 
ing to compromise felony ; 3dly, — I invited the sister to 
come openly to the Nest, that evening, as one of the means 
to be employed in attaining her ends — as respects Seneca, 
be it remembered, not as respects me; and lastly, we parted / 
just as good friends as we ever had been, and entertaining 
exactl;^ the same views as regards each other. What those 
views were, it may not be modest in me to record. 


THE REDSKINS. 


153 


CHAPTER XL 

“ If men desire the rights of property, they must take their conse- 
quences ; distinction in social classes. Without the rights of property 
civilization can hardly exist ; while the highest class of improvements 
is probably the result of the very social distinctions that so many decry. 
The great political problem to be solved, is to ascertain if the social 
distinctions that are inseparable from civilization can really exist with 
perfect equality in political rights. We are of opinion they can; and 
as much condemn him who vainly contends for a visionary and im- 
practicable social equality, as we do him who would deny to men 
equal opportunities for advancement.” 

Political Essay. 

My interview with Opportunity Newcome remained a 
secret between those who first knew of it. The evenint^ 
service in St. Andrew’s was attended only by the usual con- 
gregation, all the curiosity of the multitude seeming to have 
been allayed by the visit in the morning. The remainder 
of the day passed as usual, and, after enjoying a pleasant 
even-tide, and the earlier hours of the night in the company 
of the girls, I retired early to bed, and slept profoundly until 
morning. My uncle Ro partook of my own philosophical 
temper, and we encouraged each other in it by a short con- 
versation that occurred in his room before we respectively 
retired to rest. 

“ I agree with you, Hugh,” said my uncle, in reply to a 
remark of my own ; “ there is little use in making ourselves 
unhappy about evils that we cannot help. If we are to be 
I burnt up and stripped of our property, we shall be burnt up 
and stripped of our property. I have a competency secured 
in Europe, and we can all live on that, with economy, should 
the worst come to the worst.” 

“ It is a strange thing, to hear an American talk of 
seeking a refuge of any sort in the old world !” 

“ If matters proceed in the lively manner they have for 
the last ten years, you’ll hear of it often. Hitherto, the rich 
of Europe have been in the habit of laying by a penny in 
America against an evil day ; but the time will soon come, 


THE REDSKINS. 


154 

unless there is a great change, when the rich of America will 
return the compliment, in kind. We are worse off than if 
I we were in a state of nature, in many respects ; having our 
i hands tied by the responsibility that belongs to our position 
and means, while those who choose to assail us are under a 
mere nominal restraint. They make the magistrates, who 
are altogether in their interests; and they elect the sheriffs 
who are to see the laws executed. The theory is, that the 
people are sufficiently virtuous to perform all these duties 
! well ; but no provision has been made for the case in which 

I the people themselves happen to go astray, en masse.^^ 

i “ We have our governors and masters at Albany, sir.” 
j “Yes, we have our governors and servants at Albany, 
and there they are ! There has not been the time, probably, 
since this infernal spirit first had its rise among us, that a 
clear, manly, energetic, and well-principled proclamation, 
alone, issued by the Governor of this State, would not have 
i aroused all the better feelings of the community, and put 
this thing down ; but, small as would have been that tribute 
to the right, it has never been paid, and, until we drop double- 
distilled patriots, and have recourse again to theold-fashioned, 
high-principled gentlemen for offices of mark, it never will 
be done. Heaven preserve me from extra-virtuous, patri- 
otic, and enlightened citizens ; no good ever comes of them.” 

“ I believe the wisest way, sir, is to make up our minds 
that we have reached the point of reaction in the institutions, 
and be ready to submit to the worst. I keep the ‘ revolver’ 
well primed, and hope to escape being burnt up at least.” 

I After a little more such discourse, we parted and sought 
I our pillows, and I can say that I never slept more soundly 

I in my life. If I did lose my estate, it was what other men 

i had suffered and survived, and why might not I as well as 

I another? It is true, those other men were, in the main, the 

! victims of what are called tyrants; but others, again, had 

I certainly been wronged by the masses. Thousands have 

I been impoverished in France, for instance, by the political 

I confiscations of the multitude, and thousands enriched by ill- 

■ gotten gains, profiting by the calamities of those around 

them ; and what has .happened there might happen here. 
Big words ought to pass for nothing. No man was ever a 
whit more free because he was the whole time boasting of 


THE REDS KINS. 


155 


I his liberty, and I was not now to learn that when numbers 
i did inflict a wrong, it was always of the most intolerable 
! character. Ordinarily, they were not much disposed to this 
j species of crime ; but men in masses were no more infalli- 
I ble than individuals. In this philosophic mood, I slept, 
j I was awoke next morning by John’s appearing at my 
! bedside, after having opened the shutter of my windows, 
j “ I declare to you, Mr. Hugh,” began this well-meaning, 
but sometimes officious servant, “ I don’t know what will 
I come next at Ravensnest, now the evil spirit has got upper- 
most among the inhabitants !” | 

“ Tut’ tut, John — what you call the evil spirit is only the | 
‘ Spirit of the Institutions ;’ and is to be honoured, instead i 
j of disliked.” " j 

“ Well, sir, I don’t know what they calls it, for they talks j 

so much about the hinstitutions in this country, I never can | 

find out what they would be at. There was a hinstitulion | 

near where I lived in my last place, at the West End, in | 

I Lon’on, and there they taught young masters to speak and | 

j write Latin and Greek. But hinstitutions in Ilamerica must j 

I mean something, for them as doesn’t know any more Latin ! 

j than I do seems to be quite hintimate with those Hamerican j 

I hinstitutions. But, xMr. Hugh, would you, cowZd you, be- 
I lieve the people committed pari;icide last night?” | 

j “ I am not at all surprised at it, for, to me, they have I 

I seemed to be bent on matricide for some tino, calling the | 

I country their mother.” ! 

I “ It ’s hawful, sir — it ’s truly hawful, when a whole people | 
I commits such a crime as parricide ! I knovv’d you would | 

I be shocked to hear it, Mr. Hugh, and so I just came in to 
let yon know it.” 

“ I am infinitely obliged to you for this attention, my 
good fellow, and shall be still more so when you tell me all j 
about it.” I 

“ Yes, sir, most willingly, and most unwillingly, too. | 
But there ’s no use in ’iding the fact ; it ’s gone, Mr. Hugh !” 

“ What is gone, John? — Speak out, my good fellow-; I | 
I can bear it.” j 

! “ The pew, sir — or, rather that beautiful canopy that co- | 

: vercd it, and made it look so much like the Lo^’d Mayor’s seat i 



THE REDSKINS 


156 

in Guildhall. 1 ’ave hadmired and honoured that canopy 
sir, as the most helegant hobject in this country, sir.” 

“ So they have destroyed it at last, have they? Encour- 
aged and sustained by an expression of public sentiment, as 
proclaimed in a meeting that had a chairman and secretary, 
they have actually cut it down, I suppose?” 

“ They have, sir ,* and a pretty job they ’ve made of it. 
There it stands, up at Miller’s, hover his pig-pen !” 

This-was not a very heroic termination of the career of 
the obnoxious canopy ; but it was one that made me laugh 
heartily. John was a little offended at this levity, and he 
soon left me to finish my toilet by myself. I dare say, 
many of the honest folk of Ravensnest would have been as 
much surprised as John himself, at the indifference I mani- 
fested at the fate of this dignified pew. But, certainly, so 
far as my own social elevation, or social depression, were 
concerned, I cared nothing about it. It left me just where I 
was — neither greater nor otherwise ; and as for any monu- 
ments to let the world know who my predecessors had been, 
or who I was at that moment, the country itself, or the part 
of it in which we dwelt, was sufficient. Its history must 
be forgotten, or changed, before our position could be mis- 
taken ; though I dare say, the time will come when some 
extremely sublimated friend^of equality will wish to extin- 
guish all the lights of the past, in order that there may not 
exist that very offensive distinction of one man’s name 
being illustrated, while another man’s name is not. The 
pride of family is justly deemed the most offensive of all 
pride, since a man may value himself on a possession to 
which he has not the smallest claim in the way of personal 
merit, while those of the highest personal claims are alto- 
gether deprived of an advantage, to the enjoyment of which 
ancestors alone have created the right. Now, the institu- 
tions, both in their letter and their spirit, do favour justice., 
in this particular, as far as they can ; though even they are 
obliged to sustain one of the most potent agents to such dis- 
tinctions, by declaring, through the laws, that the child 
shall succeed to the estate of the father. When we shall ! 
get every thing straight, and as it ought to be, in this pro- | 
gressive country. Heaven only knows ; for I find my tenants ' 
Javing stress on the fact that their fathers have leased my 


THE REDSKINS. ^ 157 

lands for generations, while they are quite willing to forget 
that my falhers were the lessors all the w-hile. 

I found all four of the girls on the piazza, breathing the 
air of as balmy a summer morning as a bountiful nature 
ever bestowed. They had heard of the fate of the canopy, 
which affected them differently, and somewhat according to 
temperament. Henrietta Coldbrooke laughed at it violently, 
and in a way I did not like ; your laughing young lady 
rarely having much beyond merriment in her. I make 
all allowance for youthful spirits, and a natural disposition 
to turn things into fun; but it was too much to laugh at this 
exploit of the anti-renters, for quite half an hour together. 
I liked Anne Marston’s manner of regarding it better. She 
smiled a good deal, and laughed just enough to show that 
she was not insensible to the effect of an absurdity ; and 
then she looked as if she felt that a wrong had been done. 
As for Patt, she was quite indignant at the insult ; nor was 
she very backward in letting her opinions be known. But 
Mary Warren’s manner of viewdng the affair pleased me 
I best, as indeed was fast getting to be the fact with most of 
her notions and conceits. She manifested neither levity nor 
resentment. Once or twice, when a droll remark escaped 
Henrietta, she laughed a little; a very little, and involunta- 
rily, as it might be — just enough to prove that there was 
fun in her — when she would make some sensible observa- 
tion, to the effect that the evil temper that was up in tho 
country was the true part of the transaction that deserved 
attention ; and that shefdt this as well as saw it. Nobo ’y 
seemed to care for the canopy — not even my excellent 
I grandmother, in whose youth the church had been built, 

I when distinctions of this sort were more in accordance with 

I the temper and habits of the times, than they are to-day. I 
had been on the piazza just long enough to note this differ- 
ence in the manner of the girls, when my grandmother 
joined us. 

“ Oh ! grandmother, have you heard what those wretches 
of ‘ Injins,’ as they are rightly named, have been doing with 
the canopy of the pew ?” cried Patt, who had been at the 
bedside of our venerable parent, and kissed her an hour be- 
fore : “ they have torn it down, and placed it over the pen 
of the pigs !” 

VoL. II.— 14 


THE REDS KINS 


158 

A common laugh, in which Patt herself now joined, in* 
terrupted the answer for a moment, old Mrs. Littlepage her- 
self manifesting a slight disposition to make one of the 
amused. 

“ I have heard it all, my dear,” returned my grandmo- 
ther, “ and, on the whole, think the thing is well enough 
gotten rid of. I do not believe it would have done for Hugh 
to have had it taken down, under a menace, while it is per- 
haps better that it should no longer stand.” 

“ Were such things common, in your youth, Mrs. Little- 
uage?” asked Mary Warren. 

“ Far from uncommon ; though less so in country than in 
town churches. You will remember that we were but re- 
cently separated from England, when St. Andrew’s was 
built, and that most of the old colonial ideas prevailed among 
us. People, in that day, had very different notions of social 
station, from those which now exist ; and New York was, 
in a certain sense, one of the most, perhaps the most aristo- 
cratical colony in the country. It was somewhat so under 
the Dutch, republicans as they were, with its patroons ; but 
when the colony was transferred to the English, it became 
a royal colony at once, and English notions were introduced 
as a matter of course. In no other colony was there as 
many manors, perhaps ; the slavery of the south introduc- 
ing quite a different system there, while the policy of Penn 
and of New England, generally, was more democratic. I 
apprehend, Roger, that we owe this anti-rent struggle, and 
particularly the feebleness with which it is resisted, to the 
difference of opinion that prevails among the people of New 
England, who have sent so many immigrants among us, 
and our own purely New York notions.” 

“You are quite right, my dear mother,” answered my 
uncle, “ though New Yorkers, by descent, are not wanting 
among the tenants, to sustain the innovation. The last act 
either from direct cupidity, or to gain popularity with a set; 
whereas, as I view the matter, the first are influenced by 
the notions of the state of society from which either they 
themselves, or their parents, were directly derived. A very 
large proportion of the present population of New York is 
of New England origin. Perhaps one-third have this ex- 
traction, either as born there, or as the sons or grandsons 


THE REDSKINS. 


159 

of those who were. Now, in New England generally, great 
equality of condition exists, more especially when you rise 
above the lower classes ; there being very few, out of the 
large trading towns, who would be deemed rich in New 
York, and scarcely such a thing as a large landholder, at 
all. The relation of landlord and tenant, as connected with 
what we should term estates, is virtually unknown to New 
England ; though Maine may afford some exceptions. This 
circumstance is owing to the peculiar origin of the people, 
and to the fact that emigration has so long carried off the 
surplus population ; the bulk of those who remain being able 
to possess freeholds. There is a natural antipathy in men 
who have been educated in such a state of society, Ito any- 
thing that seems to place others in positions they do not, 
and cannot occupy themselves. Now, while the population 
of New York may bo one-third, perhaps, of New England 
descent, and consequently more or less of New England 
notions, a much larger proportion of the lawyers, editors of 
newspapers, physicians, and active politicians, are of that 
class. We think little, and talk little of these circumstances; 
for no nation inquires into its moral influences, and what I 
may call its political statistics, less than the Americans; 
but they produce large consequences.” 

“ Am I to understand you, sir, to say that anti-rentism is 
of New England origin?” 

“ Perhaps not. Its origin w’as probably more directly 
derived from the devil, who has tempted the tenants as he is 
known once to have tempted the Saviour. The outbreak 
was originally among the descendants of the Dutch, for they 
happened to be the tenants, and, as for the theories that 
have been broached, they savour more of the reaction of 
European abuses, than of anything American at all ; and 
least of all of anything from New England, where there is 
generally a great respect for the rights of property, and un- 
usual reverence for the law. Still, I think we owe our 
greatest danger to the opinions and habits of those of New 
England descent among us.” 

This seems a little paradoxical, uncle Ro, and I confess 
I should like to hear it explained.” 

I will endeavour so to do, and in as few words as pos- 
sible. The real danger is among those who influence legis- 


160 THE REDSKINS. 

lation. Now, you will find hundreds of men among us, who 
feel the vast importance of respecting contracts, who perceive 
much of the danger of anti-rentisrn, and who wish to see it 
defeated in its violent and most offensive forms, but who 
lean against the great landlords, -on account of those secret 
jealousies which cause most men to dislike advantages in 
which they do not share, and who would gladly enough see 
all leases abolished, if it could be done without a too violent 
conflict with justice. When you talk with these men, they 
will make you the common-place but unmeaning profession 
of wishing to see every husbandman the owner in fee of his 
farm, instead of a tenant, and that it is a hardship to pay 
rent, and quantities of such twaddle. Henry the Fourth, in 
a much better spirit, is said to have wished that each of his 
subjects had “ une poule dans son pot,'"* but that wish did 
not put it there. So it is with this idle profession of wishing 
to see every American husbandman a freeholder. We all 
know such a state of society never did exist, and probably 
never will ; and it is merely placing a vapid pretension to 
philanthropy in the fore-ground of a picture that should 
rigidly represent things as they are. For my part, I am 
one of those who do not believe that this or any other country 
would be any the better for dispensing with landlords and 
tenants.” 

“ Mr. Littlepage !” exclaimed Mary Warren, “ you surely 
do not mean that competency widely diffused, is not better 
than wealth in a few hands, and poverty in a great many !” 

“ No, I shall not go as far as that ; but, I do say that 
what this country most wants just now, is precisely the class 
that is connected with the independence of character and 
station, the leisure with its attendant cultivation and refine- 
ment, and the principles as well as taste that are connected 
with all.” 

“Principles! Mr. Littlepage I” added my uncle’s sweet 
interlocutor; “my father would hardly uphold that, though 
he agrees with you in so much of what you say.” 

“ I do not know that. I repeat the word principles ; for 
when you have a class of men, who are removed from a 
large range of temptations, without being placed above public 
opinion, you get precisely those who are most likely to up. 
hold that sort of secondary, but highly useful morals, which 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


161 


i are not directly derived from purely religious duties. 

I Against the last 1 shall not say one word, as it comes from 
the grace, which is of the power of God, and is happily as 
accessible to the poor as to the rich, and more too ; but, of 
men as they are, not one in a hundred regulates his life by 
I a standard created under such impulses ; and even when they 
do, the standard itself is, in some degree, qualified by the 
I ordinary notions, I apprehend. The Christian morality of an 
! East Indian is not identical with that of a Puritan, or that 
of a man of highly cultivated mind, with that of one who 
has enjoyed fewer advantages. There is one class, of prin- 
ciples, embracing all those that are adverse to the littlenesses 
of daily practice, which is much the more extended among 
the liberal-minded and educated, and it is to that set of prin- 
ciples I refer. Now we want a due proportion of that class 
of men, as our society is getting to be organized ; of those 
who are superior to meannesses.” 

“All this would be deemed atrociously aristocratic, were 
It told in Gath !” exclaimed Patt, laughing. 

“ It is atrociously common sense, notwithstanding,” an- 
swered my uncle, who was not to be laughed out of any- 
thing he felt to be true ; “ and the facts will show it. New 
England early established a system of common schools, and 
no part of the world, perhaps, has a population that is better 
grounded in intelligence. This has been the case so long 
as to put the people of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for 
instance, as a whole, materially in advance of the people of 
any other State, New York included; although, by taking 
the system from our eastern brethren, we are now doing 
pretty well. Notwithstanding, who will say that New Eng- 
land is as far advanced, in many material things, as the 
middle States. To begin with the kitchen — her best cookery 
is much below that of even the humbler classes of the true 
middle States’ families : take her language for another lest, 
it is provincial and vulgar; and there is no exaggeration in 
saying that the labouring classes of the middle States, if not 
of New England origin, use better English than thousands 
of educated men in New England itself. Both of these pe- 
culiarities, as I conceive, come from the fact that in one 
part of the country there has been a class to give a tone 
that does not exist in the other. The gentlemen of the larger 
14 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


162 

towns in the east have an influence where they live, no 
doubt ; but in the interior, as no one leads, all these matters 
are left to the common mind to get along with, as well as it 
can.” 

“ Aristocratic, sir — rank aristocracy !” 

“If it be, has aristocracy, as you call it, which in this 
instance must only m.ean decided social position, no advan- 
tages 1 Is not even a wealthy idler of some use in a nation 1 
He contributes his full share to the higher civilization that 
IS connected with the tastes and refinements, and, in fact, 
he forms it. In Europe they will tell you that a court is 
necessary to such civilization ; but facts contradict the 
theory. Social classes, no doubt, are ; but they can exist 
independently of courts, as they can, have, do, and ever will 
in the face of democracy. Now, connect this class with the 
landed interest, and see how much your chances for mate- 
rial improvement are increased. Coke, of Norfolk, proba- 
bly conferred more benefit on the husbandry of England 
than all the mere operatives that existed in his time. It is 
from such men, indeed, from their enterprise and their 
means, that nearly all the greater benefits come. The fine 
wool of America is mainly owing to Livingston’s connection 
with land; and if you drive such men out of existence, you 
must drive the benefits they confer with them. A body of 
intelligent, well-educated, liberalized landlords, scattered 
through New York, would have more effect in advancing 
the highest interests of the community than all the ‘small 
potato’ lawyers and governors you can name in a twelve- 
month. What is more, this is just the state of society in 
which to reap all the benefits of such a class, without' the 
evils of a real aristocracy. They are and would be with- 
out any particular political power, and there is no danger 
of corn-laws and exclusive legislation for their benefit. Rtch 
and poor we 7nijsf have; and let any fair-minded man say 
whether he wish a state of things in which the first shall 
have no inducement to take an extended interest in real 
estate, and the last no chance to become agriculturists, ex- 
cept as hired labourers?” 

“ You do not mince matters, uncle Ro,” put in Patt, “ and 

I will never go to Congress.” 

I “ That may be, my dear ; but I shall retain my own self- 


THE REDSKINS. 


163 

respect by fair dealing. What I say I mean, while many 
w ho take the other side do not. I say that, in a country 
like this, in which land is so abundant as to render the evils 
of a general monopoly impossible, a landed gentry is pre- 
cisely what is most needed for the higher order of civiliza- 
tion, including manners, tastes, and the minor principles, 
and is the very class which, if reasonably maintained and 
properly regarded, would do the most good at the least risk 
of any social caste known. They have always existed in 
New York, though with a lessening influence, and are the 
reason, in my judgment, why we are so much before New 
England in particular things, while certainly behind that 
quarter of the country in many others that are dependent 
on ordinary schooling.” 

“ I like to hear a person maintain his opinions frankly 
and manfully,” said my grandmother; “and this have you 
done, Roger, from boyhood. My own family, on my fa- 
ther’s side, was from New England, and I subscribe to a 
great deal that you say ; and particularly to the part that 
relates to the apathy of the public to this great wrong. It 
is now time, however, to go to the breakfast-table, as John 
has been bowing in the door, yonder, for the last minute or 
two.” 

To breakfast we went ; and, notwithstanding incendiaries, 
anti-rentism, and canopies of pig-pens, a merry time we had 
of it. Henrietta Coldbrooke and Anne Marston never came 
out with more spirit, though in their several ways, than each 
did that morning. I believe I looked a little surprised, for 
I observed that my uncle stole occasional glances at me, 
that seemed to say — “ there, my fine fellow, what do you 
think of that, now ?” whenever either of his wards uttered 
anything that he fancied cleverer than common. 

“ Have you heard, ma’am,” asked my uncle Ro of my 
grandmother, “ that we are to have old Sus and Jaaf here 
at the Nest, shortly, and both in grand costume? It seems 
the red-men are about to depart, and there is to be smoking 
of pipes, and a great council, which the Trackless fancies 
will be more dignified if held in front of the house of his 
pale-face friends, than if held at his own hut.” 

“ How did you ascertain that, Roger ?” 

“ 1 have been at the wigwam, this morning, and have the 


THE REDSKINS. 


104 

fact directly from the Onondago, as well as from the inter 
preter, whom I met there. By the way, Hugh, we must j 
shortly decide what is to be done with the prisoners, or we 
shall have writs of habeas corpus served on us, to know 
why we detain them.” 

“ Is it possible, uncle Ro,” for so his wards called him 
habituajly — “to rescue a gentleman from the gallows by 
marrying him?” asked Henrietta Coldbrooke, demurely. 

“ That is so strange a question, that as a guardian I feel 
curious to hear its meaning.” 

“Tell — tell at once, Henrietta” — said the other ward, 
urging her companion to speak. “ I will save your blushes, 
and act as your interpreter. Miss Coldbrooke was honoured 
by Mr. Seneca Newcome with this letter, within the last 
twenty-four hours; and, it being a family matter, 1 think it 
ought to be referred to a family council.” 

“ Nay, Anne,” said the blushing Henrietta, “ this is hardly 
fair — nor am I sure that it would be quite lady-like in me 
to sufier that letter to be generally known — particularly 
known to you, it certainly is, already.” 

“ Perhaps your reluctance to have it read does not extend 
to me, Henrietta?” said my uncle. 

“ Certainly not, sir; nor to my dear Mrs. Littlepage, nor 
to Martha — though' I confess that I cannot see what interest 
Mr. Hugh can have in the subject. Here it is ; take it and 
read it when you please.” 

My uncle was pleased to read it on the spot. As he pro- 
ceeded, a frown collected on his brow, and he bit his lip, 
like one provoked as well as vexed. Then he laughed, and 
threw the letter on the table, where no one presumed to 
molest it. As Henrietta Coldbrooke was blushing all this 
time, though she laughed and seemed provoked, our curi- 
osity was so great and manifest, that my grandmother felt 
an inclination to interfere. 

“ May not that letter be read aloud, for the benefit of all?” 
she asked. 

“ There can be no particular reason for concealing it,” 
answered uncle Ro, spitefully. “ The more it is known, 
the more the fellow will be laughed at, as he deserves to 
be.” 

“Will that be right, uncle Ro?” exclaimed Miss Cold- 


THE REDSKIN S. 


165 

brooke, hastily. “ Will it be treating a gentleman as 
he 

“Pshaw! — it will not be treating a gentleman, at ail. 
The fellow is, at this moment, a prisoner for attempting to 
set an inhabited house on fire, in the middle of the night.” 

Henrietta said no more ; and my grandmother took the 
letter, and read it for the common benefit. I shall not copy 
the effusion of Seneca, which was more cunning than phi- 
losophical ; but it contained a strong profession of love, 
urged in a somewhat business manner, and a generous offer 
of his hand to the heiress of eight thousand a-year. And 
this proposal was made only a day or two before the fellow 
was ‘ taken in the 'act,’ and at the very time he was the most 
deeply engaged in his schemes of anti-rentism. 

“ There is a class of men among us,” said my uncle, after 
everybody had laughed at this magnificent offer, “ who do 
not seem to entertain a single idea of the proprieties. How 
j is it possible, or where could the chap have been bred, to 
, fancy for an instant that a young woman of fortune and 
j station, would marry Aim, and that, too, almost without an 
j acquaintance. I dare say Henrietta never spoke to him ten 
i times in her life.” 

j “ Not five, sir, and scarcely anything was said at either 
I of those five.” 

I “And you answered the letter, my dear?” asked my 
i grandmother. “ An ansioer ought not to have been forgot- 

! ten ; though it might have properly come, in this case, from 

your guardiafi.” 

“ I answered it myself, ma’am, not wishing to be laughed 
at for my part of the affair. I declined the honour of Mr. 
Seneca Newcome’s hand.” 

“ Well, if the truth mvst be said,” put in Patt, drily, “ I 
did the same thing, only three weeks since.” 

“ And I so lately as last week,” added Anne Marston, 
demurely. ' 

I do not know that I ever saw my uncle Ro so strangely 
affected. While everybody around him was laughing heart- 
ily, he looked grave, not to say fierce. Then he turned 
suddenly to me, and said — 

“ We must let him be hanged, Hugh. Were he to live 
ft thousand years he would never learn the fitness of things.” 

“ You’ll think better of this, sir, and become more mer- 


IG6 THE REDSKINS. 

ciful. The man has only nobly dared. But I confess a 
strong desire to ascertain if Miss Warren alone has escaped 
his assaults.” 

Mary — pretty Mary — she blushed scarlet, but shook her 
head, and refused to give any answer. We all saw that her j 
feelings were not enlisted in the affair in any way ; but ; 
there was evidently something of a more serious nature con- ' 
nected with Seneca’s addresses to her than in connection 
with his addresses to either of the others. As I have since ' 
ascertained, he really had a sort of affection for Mary ; and 
I have been ready to pardon him the unprincipled and im- 
pudent manner in which he cast his flies towards the other | 
fish, in consideration of his taste in this particular. But | 
Mary herself would tell us nothing. j 

“ You are not to think so much of this, Mr. Littlepage,” | 
she cried, so soon as a little recovered from her confusion, I 
“ since it is only acting on the great anti-rent principle, after | 
all. In the one case, it is only a wish to get good farms j 
cheap — and in the other, good wives.” j 

“ In the one case, other men’s farms — and in the other, I 
other men’s wives.” I 

“ Other men’s wives, certainly, if wives at all,” said Patt, j 
pointedly. “ There is no Mr. SeneJcy Newcome there.” j 
“We must let the law have its way, and the fellow be { 
hanged !” rejoined my uncle. “ I could overlook the attempt I 
to burn the Nest House, but I cannot overlook this. Fel- | 
lows of his class get everything dessvs dessous^ and I do not i 
wonder there is anti-rentism in the land. Such a matrimo- j 
nial experiment could never have been attempted, as between ! 
such parties, in any region but one tainted with anti-rentism, j 
or deluded by the devil.” 

“An Irishman would have included my grandmother in 
his cast of the net; that’s the only difference, sir.” 

“ Sure enough, why have you escaped, my dearest mother? 
You, who have a fair widow’s portion, too.” 

“ Because the suitor was not an’ Irishman, as Hugh inti- 
mated, — I know no other reason, Hodge. But a person so 
devoted to the ladies must not suffer in the cruel way you | 
speak of. The wretch must be permitted to get off.” I 

All the girls now joined with my grandmother in prefer- j 
ring this, to them, very natural petition; and, for a few 


THE REDSKINS. 


167 

minutes, we heard of nothing but regrets, and solicitations 
that Seneca might not be given up to the law. “ Tender mer- 
cies of the law” might not be an unapt way to express the 
idea, as it is now almost certain that the bigger the rogue, 
the greater is the chance of escape. 

“All this is very well, ladies; mighty humane and femi- 
nine, and quite in character,” answered my uncle; “but, 
in the first place, there is such a thing as compounding 
felony, and its consequences are not altogether agreeable ; 
then, one is bound to consider the effect on society in general. 
Here is a fellow who first endeavours to raise a flame in the 
hearts of no less than four young ladies ; failing of which, 
he takes refuge in lighting a fire in Hugh’s kitchen. Do 
you know, I am almost as much disposed to punish him for 
the first of these offences as for the last?” 

“ There’s a grand movement as is making among all the 
redskins, ma’am,” said John, standing in the door of the 
breakfast parlour, “ and I did n’t know but the ladies, and 
Mr. Littlepage, and Mr. Hugh, would like to see it. Old 
Sus is on his way here, followed by Yop, Vv'ho comes grum- 
bling along after him, as if he did n’t like the amusement 
any way at all.” 

“ Have any arrangements been made for the proper re- 
ception of our guests this morning, Roger?” 

“ Yes, ma’am. At least, I gave orders to have benches 
brought and placed under the trees, and plenty of tobacco 
provided. Smoking is a great part of a council, I believe, 
and we shall be ready to commence at that as soon as they 
meet.” 

“ Yes, sir, all is ready for ’em,” resumed John. “ Miller 
has sent an ’orse cart to bring the benches, and we ’ve pro- 
vided as much ’baccy as they can use. The servants ’opes, 
ma’am, they can have permission to witness the ceremony. 
It is n’t often that civilized people can get a sight at real 
savages.” 

My grandmother gave an assent, and there was a general 
movement, preparatory to going on the lawn to witness the 
parting interview between the Trackless and his visiters. 

“You -have been very considerate. Miss Warren,” I 
whispered Mary, as I helped her to put on her shawl,” in 


THE REDSKINS. 


168 

not betraying what I fancy is the most important of all 
Seneca’s love secrets.” 

“ I confess these letters have surprised me,” the dear girl 
said thoughtfully, and with a look that seemed perplexed. 
“ No one would be apt to think very favourably of Mr. 
Newcome ; yet it was by no means necessary to complete 
his character, that one should* think as ill as this.” 

I said no more, — but these few words, which appeared to 
escape Mary unconsciously and involuntarily, satisfied me 
that Seneca had been seriously endeavouring to obtain an 
interest in her heart notwithstanding her poverty. 


CHAPTER XII. 

“And underneath that face like summer’s dreams, 

Its lips as moveless, and its cheek as clear. 

Slumbers a 'whirlwind of the heart’s emotions. 

Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow — all save fear.” 

Halleck. 

The only singularity connected with the great age of the 
Indian and the negro, was the fact that they should have 
been associates for near a century, and so long intimately 
united in adventures and friendship. I say friendship, for 
*.^he term was not at all unsuited to the feeling that connected 
these old men together, though they had so little in common, 
in ilie way of character. While the Indian possessed all the 
manly and high qualities of a warrior of the woods, of a 
chief, and of one who had never acknowledged a superior, * 
the other was necessarily distinguished by many of the 
wickednesses of a state of servitude ; the bitter consequences 
of a degraded caste. Fortunately, both were temperate, by 
no means an every-day virtue among the red-men who dwelt 
with the whites, though much more so with the blacks. But 
Susquesus was born an Onondago, a tribe remarkable for 
its sobriety, and at no period of his long life would he taste 


THE R EDSKINS. 


1G9 

i intoxicating drink, while Jaaf was essentially a sober 
Riun, ihough he had a thorough ‘ nigger’ relish for hard 
cider. There can be little doubt that these two aged memo- 
rials of past ages, and almost forgotten generations, owed 
their health and strength to their temperance, fortifying na- 
tural predispositions to tenacity of life. 

It was always thought Jaaf was a little the senior of the 
Indian, though the difference in their ages could not be 
great. It is certain that the red-man retained much the 
most of his bodily powers, though, for fifty years, he had 
taxed them the least. Susquesus never worked ; never would 
work in the ordinary meaning of the term. He deemed it 
to be beneath his dignity as a warrior, and, I have heard it 
said, that nothing but necessity could have induced him to 
plant, or hoe, even when in his prime. So long as the 
boundless forest furnished the deer, the moose, the beaver, 
the bear, and the other animals that it is usual for the red- 
man to convert into food, he had cared little for the fruits of 
the earth, beyond those that were found growing in their 
native stale. His hunts were the last regular occupation 
that the old man abandoned. He carried the rifle, and 
threaded the woods with considerable vigour after he had 
seen a hundred winters ; but the game deserted him, under 
the never-dying process of clearing acre after acre, until 
little of the native forest was left, with the exception of the 
reservation of my own, already named, and the pieces of 
woodland that are almost invariably attached to every Ame- 
rican farm, lending to the landscape a relief and beauty 
that are usually wanting to the views of older countries. 
It is this peculiarity which gives so many of the views of 
the republic, nay, it may be said to all of them, so mucS of 
the character of park-scenery when seen at a distance that 
excludes the blemishes of a want of finish, and the coarser 
appliances of husbandry. 

With Jaaf, though he had imbibed a strong relish for the 
forest, and for forest-life, it was different in many respects. 
Accustomed to labour from childhood, he could not be kept 
from work, even by his extreme old age. He had the hoe, 
or the axe, or the spade in his hand daily, many years after 
he could wield either to any material advantage. The little 
he did in this way, now, was not done to kill thcijght, for he 

VoL. II. — 15 


THE REDSKINS 


170 

never had any to kill ; it was purely the effect of habit, and 
of a craving desire to be Jaaf still, and to act his life over 
again. 

I am sorry to say that neither of these men had any 
essential knowledge, or any visible feeling for the truths of 
Christianity. A hundred years ago, little spiritual care was 
extended to the black, and the difficulty of making an im- 
pression, in this way, on the Indian, has become matter of 
history. Perhaps success best attends such efforts when the 
pious missionary can penetrate to the retired village, and 
disseminate his doctrines far from the miserable illustration 
of their effects, that is to be hourly traced, by the most casual 
observer, amid the haunts of civilized men. That Christi- 
anity does produce a deep and benign influence on our social 
condition cannot be doubted; but he who is only superficially 
acquainted with Christian nations, as they are called, and 
sets about tracing the effecfs of this influence, meets with so 
many proofs of a contrary nature, as to feel a strong dispo- 
sition to doubt the truth of dogmas that seem so impotent. 
It is quite likely such was the case with Susquesus, who had 
passed all the earlier years of his exclusive association with 
the pale-faces, on the flanks of armies, or among hunters, 
surveyors, runners, and scouts ; situations that were not 
very likely to produce any high notions of moral culture. 
Nevertheless, many earnest and long-continued efforts had 
been made to awaken in this aged Indian some notions of 
the future state of a pale-face, and to persuade him to be 
])aptized. My grandmother, in particular, had kept this end 
in view for quite half a century, but with no success. The 
different clergy, of all denominations, had paid more or less 
attention to this Indian, with the same object, though no visi- 
ble results had followed their efforts. Among others, Mr. 
Warren had not overlooked this part of his duty, but he had 
met with no more success than those who had been before 
him. Singular as it seemed to some, though I saw nothing 
strange in it, Mary Warren had joined m this benevolent 
project with a gentle zeal, and affectionate and tender inte- 
rest, that promised to achieve more than had been even 
hoped for these many years by her predecessors in the same 
kind office. Her visits to the hut had been frequent, and I 
learned that morning from Palt, that, “ Though Mary her- 


niE REDSKINS 


i?i 

fieir never spoke on the subject, enough has been seen by 
others to leave no doubt that her gentle offices and prayers 
had, at last, touched, in some slight degree, the marble-like 
heart of the Trackless.” 

As for Jaaf, it is possible that it was his misfor^ne to be 
a slave in a family that belonged to the Episcopal Church, a 
sect that is so tempered and chastened in its religious rites, 
and so far removed from exaggeration, as often to seem cold 
to those who seek excitement, and fancy quiet and self-con* 
trol incompatible with a lively faith. ‘ Your priests are 
unsuited to make converts among the people,’ said an enthu- 
siastic clergyman of another denomination to me, quite 
lately. ‘ They cannot go among the brambles and thorns 
without tearing their gowns and surplices.’ There may be 
a certain degree of truth in this, though the obstacle exists 
rather with the convert than with the missionary. The 
vulgar love coarse excitemen'.y and fancy that a profound 
spiritual sensibility must needs awaken a powerful physical 
sympathy. To such, groans, and sighs, and lamentations 
must be not only audible to exist at all, but audible in a dra- 
matic and striking form with men, in order to be groans, and 
sighs, and lamentations acceptable with God. It is certain, 
at any rate, that the practices which reason, education, a 
good taste, and a sound comprehension of Christian obliga- 
tions condemn, are, if not most effective, still effective with 
the ignorant and coarse-minded. XThus may it have been 
with Jaaf, who had not fallen into the hands of the exagge- 
rated during that period of life when he was most likely to 
be aroused by their practices, and who now really seemed 
to have lived beyond everything but the recollections con- 
nected with the persons and things he loved in youth. 

As men, in the higher meaning of the term, the reader 
will remember that Susqiiesus was ever vastly the superior 
of the black. Jaaf’s intellect had suffered under the blight 
which seems to have so generally caused the African mind 
to wither, as we know that mind among ourselves ; while 
that of his associate had ever possessed much of the loftiness 
of a grand nature, left to its native workings by the impetus 
pf an unrestrained, though savage liberty. 

Such were the characters of the two extraordinary men 


r — n 

I 172 THE REDSKINS. 

! whom we now went forth to meet. By the lime we reached 
I the lawn, they were walking slowly towards the piazza, 

I having got within the range of the shrubbery that immedi- 
j ately-surrounda, and sheds its perfume on the house. The 
I Indian led, as seemed to become his character and rank. 

I But Jaaf had never presumed on his years and indulgencies 
so far as to forget his condition. A slave he had been 
born, a slave had he lived, and a slave he would die. This, 

I too. in spite of the law of emancipation, which had, in fact, 
liberated him long ere he had reached his hundredth year, 
j I have been told that when my father announced to Jaaf the 
I fact that he and all his progeny, the latter of which was 
j very numerous, were free and at liberty to go and do 
as they pleased, the old black was greatly dissatisfied. 

“ What, good dat all do, Masser Malbone,” he growled. 

“ Whey ’ey won’t let well alone? Nigger be nigger, and 
white gentle’em be white gentle’em. I ’speck, now, nuttin’ 
but disgrace and poverty come on my breed ! We alway 
hab been gentle’em’s nigger, and why can’t ’ey let us be 
j gentle’em’s nigger, as long as we like ? Ole Sus hab liberty 
ail he life, and what good he get? Nuttin’ but poor red 
sabbage, for all dat, and never be any I’ing more. If he 
could be gentle’em’s sabbage, I tell him,dZa^ war’ somet’ing ; 
but, no, he too proud for dat ! Gosh ! so he only he own 
sabbage ■ ” 

The Onondago was in high costume ; much higher even 
than when he first received the visit of the prairie Indians. I 

The paint he used, gave new fire to eyes that age had cer- i 

tainly dimmed, though they had not extinguished their light ; i 
and fierce and savage as was the conceit, it unquestionably | 
relieved the furrows of time. That red should be as much j 
the favourite colour of the redskin is, perhaps, as natural as j 
that our ladies should use cosmetics to imitate the lilies and | 
roses that are wanting. A grim fierceness, however, was ' 

the aim of the Onondago ; it being his ambition, at that mo. | 

j ment, to stand before his guests in the colours of a warrior. | 

■ Of the medals and wampum, and feathers, and blankets, and ! 

moccasins, gay with the quills of the porcupine, tinged half 
a dozen hues, and the tomahawk polished to the brightness | 
of silver, it is not necessary to say anything. So much has 


THE REDSKINS, 


173 

been said, and written, and seen, of late, on such subjects, 
that almost every one now knows how the North American 
j warrior appears, when he comes forth in his robes. 

Nor had Jaaf neglected to do honour to a festival that 
was so peculiarly in honour of his friend. Grumble he 
would and did, throughout the whole of that day ; but he 
was not the less mindful of the credit and honour of Sus- 
quesus. It is the fashion of the times to lament the disap- 
pearance of the red-men from among us ; but, for my part, 

I feel much more disposed to mourn over the disappearance of 
the “ nigger.” I use the Doric, in place of the more modern 
nnd mincing term of ‘coloured man;’ for the Doric alone 
will convey to the American the meaning in which I wish « 
to be understood. I regret the “ nigger the old-fashioned, 

I careless, light-hearted, laborious, idle, roguish, honest, faith- 
j ful, fraudulent, grumbling, dogmatical slave ; who was at 
I times good for nothing, and, again, the stay and support of 
I many a family. But, him I regret in particular is the domestic 
slave, who identified himself with the interests, and most of 
all with the credit of those he served, and who always played 
the part of an humble privy counsellor, and sometimes that 
of a prime minister. It is true, I had never seen Jaaf act- 
ing in the latter capacity, among us ; nor is it probable he 
ever did exactly discharge such functions with any of his 
old masters ; but, he was a much indulged servant always, 
and had become so completely associated with us, by not only 
long services, but by playing his part well and manfully in 
divers of the wild adventures that are apt to characterize 
the* settlement of a new country, -that we all of us thought of 
him rather as an humble and distant relative, than as a slave. 
Slave, indeed, he had not been for more than four-score 
years, his manumission-papers having been signed and 
regularly recorded as far back as that, though they re- 
mained a perfect dead letter, so far as the negro himself 
was concerned. 

The costume of Yop Litilepage, as this black was fami- 
1 arly called by all who knew anything of his existence, 
and his great age, as well as that of Susquesus, had got 
into more than one newspaper, was of what might be termed 
the old school of the ‘ nigger !’ The coat was scarlet, with 
buttons of mother-of-pearl, each as large as a half-dollar; 
15 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


174 

his breeches were sky blue ; the vest was green ; the stocks 
ings striped blue and white, and the legs had no other pecu- 
liarities about them, than the facts that all that remained of 
the calves were on the shins, and that they were stepped 
nearer than is quite common to the centre of the foot ; the 
heel-part of the latter, being about half as long as the part 
connected with the toes. The shoes, indeed, were some- 
what conspicuous portions of the dress, having a length, and 
breadth, and proportions that might almost justify a natural- 
ist in supposing that they were never intended for a human 
being. But, the head and hat, according to Jaaf ’s own no- 
tion, contained the real glories of his toilette and person. 
As for the last, it was actually laced, having formed a part 
of my grandfather, Gen. Cornelius Littlepage’s uniform in 
the field, and the wool beneath it was as white as the snow 
of the hills. This style of dress has long disappeared from 
among the black race, as well as from among the whites ; 
but vestiges of it were to be traced, my uncle tells me, in 
his boyhood ,* particularly at the pinkster holidays, that pecu- 
liar festival of the negro. Notwithstanding the incongruities 
of his attire, Yop Littlepage made a very respectable figure 
on this occasion, the great age of both him and the Onbn- 
dago being the circumstances that accorded least with 
their magnificence. 

Notwithstanding the habitual grumbling of the negro, the 
Indian always led when they made a movement. He 
had led in the forest, on the early hunts and on the war- 
paths ; he had led in their later excursions on the neigh- 
bouring hills; he always led when it was their wont to 
stroll to the hamlet together, to witness the militia musters 
and other similar striking events ; he even was foremost 
when they paid their daily visits to the Nest ; and, now, he 
came a little in advance, slow in movement, quiet, with lips 
compressed, eye roving and watchful, and far from dim, and 
his whole features womderfully composed and noble, consi- 
dering the great number of years- he had seen, Jaaf fol- 
lowed at the same gait, but a very different man in de- 
meanour and aspect. His face scarce seemed human, even 
the colour of his skin, once so glistening and black, having 
changed to a dirty grey, all its gloss having disappeared 
while his lips were, perhaps, the most prominent feature 


THE REDSKINS. 


175 

! I'hese. too, were in incessant motion, the old man working 
his jaws, in a sort of second childhood ; or as the infant 
bites its gnrns to feel its nearly developed teeth, even when 
he was not keeping up the almost unceasing accompani- 
ment of his grumbles. 

As the old men walked towards us, and the men of the 
prairies had not yet shown themselves, we all advanced to | 

meet the former. Every one of our party, the girls included, { 

shook hands with Susquesus, and wished him a good morn- 1 

ing. He knew my grandmother, and betrayed some strong | 

feeling, when he shook kei' hand. He knew Patt, and j 

nodd^ kindly in answer to her good wishes. He knew j 

Mary Warren, too, and held her hand a little time in his j 

, own, gazing at her wistfully the while. My uncle Ro and | 

I were also recognised, his look at me being earnest and ^ 

long. The two other girls were courteously received, but | 

his feelings were little interested in them. A chair was j 

placed for Susquesus on the lawn, and he took his seat. j 

As for Jaaf, he walked slowly up to the party, took off his i 

fine cocked-hat, but respectfully refused the seat he too v/as 
offered. Happening thus to be the last saluted, he was the 
first with whom my grandmother opened the discourse. 

It is a pleasant sight, Jaaf, to see you, and our old 
friend Susquesus, once more on the lawn of the old house.” 

“ Not so berry ole house. Miss Duss, a’ter all,” answered 
the negro, in his grumbling way. Remem’er him well 
’nough ; only built tudder day.” 

It has been built three-score years, if you call that the 
other day. I was then young myself; a bride — happy and 
blessed far beyond my deserts. Alas ! how changed have 
things become since that time!” 

“ Yes, you won’erful changed — must say dat for you, 
Miss Duss. I some time surprise myself so young a lady 
get change so berry soon.” 

“ Ah ! Jaaf, though it may seem a short time to you, 
who are so much my senior, four-score years are a heavy 
load to carry. I enjoy excellent health and spirits for my 
years; but age will assert its power.” 

“ Remem’er you, Miss Duss, like dat young lady dere,” 
pointing at Patt — “now you do seem won’erful change. 

Ole Sus, too, berry much alter of late — can’t hole out much 


r 


176 THE REDSKINS. 

longer, I do t’ink. But Injin nebber hab much raal grit 
in ’em.” 

“ And you, my friend,” continued my grandmother, 
turning to Susquesus, who had sat motionless while she 
was speaking to Jaaf — “ do you also see this great change 
in me? I have known you much longer than I have known 
Jaaf; and your recollection of me must go back nearly to 
childhood — to the time when I first lived in the woods, as a 
companion of my dear, excellent old uncle, Chainbearer.” 

“ Why should Susquesus forget little wren? Hear song 
now in his car. No change at all in little wren, in Susque- 
sus’ eye.” 

This is at least gallant, and worthy of an Onondago 
chief. But, my worthy friend, age will make its mark even 
on the trees ; and we cannot hope to escape it for ever !” 

“ No ; bark smooth on young tree — rough on ole tree. 
Nebber forget Chainbearer. He ’s same age as Susquesus 
— little ole’er, too. Brave warrior — good man. Know him 
when young hunter — he dere when dai happen.” 

“ When what happened, Susquesus ? I have long wished 
to know what drove you from your people; and why you, 
a red-man in your heart and habits, to the last, should have 
so long lived among us pale-faces, away from your own 
tribe. I can understand why you like ?/5, and wish to pass 
the remainder of your days with this family; for I know 
all that we have gone through together, and your early con- 
nection with my father-in-law, and his father-in-law, too ; 
but the reason why you left your own people so young, and 
have now lived near a hundred years away from them, is 
what I could wish to hear, before the angel of death sum- 
mons one of us away.” 

While my grandmother was thus coming to the point, for 
the first time in her life, on this subject, as she afterwards 
told me, the Onondago’s eye was never off her ovrn. I 
thought he seemed surprised ; thqn his look changed to sad- 
ness ; and bowing his head a little, he sat a long time, ap- 
parently musing on the past. The subject had evidently 
aroused the strongest of the remaining feelings of the old 
man, and the allusion to it had brought back images of 
things long gone by, that were probably reviewed not alto- 
gether without pain. I think his head must have been 


I 


! 


I 


I 


i 


THE REDSKINS. 


177 

bowed, and his face riveted on the ground, for quite a 
minute. 

“ Chainbearer nebber say why ?” the old man suddenly 
asked, raising his face again to look at my grandmother. 
“ Ole chief, too — he know ; nebber talk of it, eh ?” 

“ Never. I have heard both my uncle and my father-in- 
law say that they knew the reason why you left your 
people, so many long, long, years ago, and that it did you 
credit ; but neither ever said more. It is reported here, that 
these red-men, who have come so far to see you, also know 
it, and that it is one reason of their coming so much out of 
their way to pay you a visit.” 

Susquesus listened attentively, though no portion of his 
person manifested emotion but his eyes. All the rest of the 
man seemed to be made of some material that was totally 
without sensibility; but those restless, keen, still penetrating 
eyes opened a communication with the being within, and 
proved that the spirit was far younger than the tenement in 
which it dwelt. 'Still, he made no revelation ; and our curi- 
osity, which was getting to be intense, was completely 
baflled. It was even some little time before the Indian said 
anything more at all. When he did speak, it was merely 
to say — 

“Good. Chainbearer wise chief — Gin’ral wise, too. 
Good in camp — good at council-fire. Know iclien to talk — 
know what to talk.” 

How much further my dear grandmother might have 
been disposed to push the subject, I cannot say, for just 
then, we saw the redskins coming out of their quarters, evi- 
dently about to cross from the old farm to the lawn, this 
being their last visit to the Trackless, preparatory to depart- 
ing on their long journey to the prairies. Aware of all this, 
she fell back, and my uncle led Susquesus to the tree, 
where the benches were placed for the guests, I carrying 
the chair in the rear. Everybody followed, even to all the 
domestics who could be spared from the ordinary occupa- 
tions of the household. 

The Indian and the negro were both seated ; and chairs 
having been brought out for the members of the family, we 
took our places near by, though so much in the back-ground 
as not to appear obtrusive. 


178 THE REDSKINS. 

The Indians of the prairies arrived in their customary 
marching order, or in single files. Manytongues led, fol- 
lowed by Prairiefire; Flintyheart and Eaglesflight came 
nexti^ and the rest succeeded in a nameless but perfect order. 

To our surprise, however, they brought the two prisoners 
with them, secured with savage ingenuity, and in a way to 
render escape nearly impossible. 

It is unnecessary to dwell on the deportment of these 
strangers, as they took their allotted places on the benches, 
it being essentially the same as that described in their first 
visit. The same interest, however, was betrayed in their 
manner, nor did their curiosity or veneration appear to be 
in the least appeased, by having passed a day, or tvyo, in 
the immediate vicinity of their subject. That this curiosity 
and veneration proceeded, in some measure, from the great 
age and extended experience of the Trackless was probable 
enough, but I could not divest myself of the idea that there 
lay something unusual behind all, which tradition had made 
familiar to these sons of the soil, but which had become lost 
to us. 

The American savage enjoys one great advantage over 
the civilized man of the same quarter of the world. His 
raditions ordinarily are true, whereas, the multiplied means 
of imparting intelligence among ourselves, has induced so 
many pretenders to throw themselves into the ranks of the 
wise and learned, that blessed, thrice blessed is he, whose 
mind escapes the contamination of falsehood and prejudice. 
Well would it be for men, if they oftener remembered that 
the very facilities that exist to circulate the truth, are just 
so many facilities for circulating falsehood ; and that he who 
believes even one-half of that which meets his eyes, in his 
daily inquiries into passing events, is most apt to throw away 
quite a moiety of even that much credulity, on facts that 
either never had an existence at all, or, which have been so 
mutilated in the relation, that their eye-witnesses would be 
the last to recognise them. 

The customary silence succeeded the arrival of the visi« 
ters ; then Eaglesflight struck fire with a flint, touched the 
tobacco with the flame, and puffed at a very curiously carved 
pipe, made of some soft stone of the interior, until he had i 
lighted it beyond any risk of its soon becoming extinguished I 


THE REDSKINS. 


179 

This done, he rose, advanced with profound reverence in 
his air, and presented it to Susquesus, who took it and 
smoked for a few seconds, after which he returned it to him 
from whom it had been received. This was a signal for 
other pipes to be lighted, and one was offered to my uncle 
and myself, each of us making a puff or two ; and even 
John and the other male domestics were not neglected. 
Prairiefire, himself, paid the compliment to Jaaf. The negro 
! had noted what was passing, and was much disgusted with 
I the niggardliless which required the pipe to be so soon re- 
turned. This he did not care to conceal, as was obvious 
! by the crusty observation he made when the pipe was offered 
to him. Cider and tobacco had, from time immemorial, been 
the two great blessings of this black’s existence, and he felt, 
at seeing one standing ready to deceive his pipe, after a puff 
or two, much as he might have felt had one pulled the mug 
from his mouth, after the second or third swallow. 

“ No need wait here” — grumbled old Jaaf — “ when I I 
; done, gib you de pipe, ag’in ; nebber fear. Masser Corny, j 
I or Masser Malbone, or Masser Hugh — dear me, I nebber 
! knows which be libbin’ and which be dead, I get so ole, now- 

I a-day ! But nebber mind if he be ole ; can smoke yet, and 

don’t lub Injin fashion of gibbin’ I’ings ; and dat is gib him 
and den take away, ag’in. Nigger is nigger, and Injin is 
Injin ,* and nigger best. Lord ! how’ many years I do see — 

I do see — most get tire of libbin’ so long. Don’t wait. Injin ; 
when I done, you get pipe again, I say. Best not make ole 
Jaaf too mad, or he dreadful !” 

Although it is probable that Prairiefire did not understand 
one-half of the negro’s words, he comprehended his wish j 
to finish the tobacco, before he relinquished the pipe. This 
was against all rule, and a species of slight on Indian 
usages, but the red-man overlooked all, with the courtesy 
of one trained in* high society, and walked away as com- 
posedly as if everything were right. In these particulars 
the high-breeding of an Indian is always made apparent. 

No one ever sees in his deportment, a shrug, or a half-con- 
cealed smile, or a look of intelligence; a wink or a nod, or 
any other of that class of signs, or communications, which 
it is usually deemed underbred to resort to in company. In 


1 


THE RE DSKINS. 


180 


all things, he is dignified and quiet, whether it be the efiec' 
of coldness, or the result of character. 

The smoking now became general, but only as a cere- 
mony ; no one but Jaaf setting to with regularity to finish 
his pipe. As for the black, his opinion of the superiority of 
his own race over that of the red-man, was as fixed as his 
consciousness of its inferiority to the white, and he would 
have thought the circumstance that the present mode of 
using tobacco was an Indian custom, a sufficient reason 
why he himself should not adopt it. The smoking did not 
last long, but was succeeded by a silent pause. Then 
Prairiefire arose and spoke. 

“Father,” he commenced, “we are about to quit you. 
Our squaws and pappooses, on the prairies, wish to see us ; 
it is time for us to go. They are looking towards the great 
salt lake for us ; we are looking towards the great fresh- 
water lakes for them. There the sun sets — here it rises ; 
the distance is great, and many strange tribes of pale-faces 
live along the path. Our journey has been one of peace. 
We have not hunted; we have taken no scalps; but we 
have seen our Great Father, Uncle Sam, and we have seen 
our Great Father, Susquesus ; we shall travel towards the 
setting sun satisfied. — Father, our traditions are true; they 
never lie. A lying tradition is worse than a lying Indian. 
What a lying Indian says, deceives his friends, his wife, his 
children ; what a lying tradition says, deceives a tribe. Our 
traditions are true; they speak of the Upright Onondago. 
All the tribes on the prairies have heard this tradition, and 
are very glad. It is good to hear of justice; it is bad to 
hear of injustice. Without justice an Indian is no better 
than a wolf. No; there is not a tongue spoken on the 
prairies which does not tell of that pleasant tradition. We 
could not pass the wigwam of our father without turnino* 
aside to look at him. Our squaws and pappooses wish to 
see us, but they would have told .us to come back, and turn 
aside to look upon our father, had we forgotten to do so. — 
Why has my father seen so many winters ? It is the will 
of the Manitou. The Great Spirit wants to keep him here 
a little longer. He is like stones piled together to tell the 
hjjnlers where the pleasant path is to be found. All the red- 


I 


! 


I 

I 


THE REDSKINS. 


181 

tneR who see him think of what is right. No; the Great 
Spirit cannot yet spare my father from the earth, lest red- 
men torget what is right. He is stones piled together.” 

Here Prairiefire ceased, sitting down amidst a low murmur 
of applause. He had expressed the common feeling, and 
met with the success usual to such efforts. Susquesus had 
heard and understood all that was said, and I could perceive 
that he felt it, though he betrayed less emotion on this occa- 
sion than he had done on the occasion of the previous inter- 
view. Then, the novelty of the scene, no doubt, contributed 
to irifluence his feelings. A pause followed this opening 
speech, and we were anxiously waiting for the renowned 
orator, Eaglesflight, to rise, when a singular and somewhat 
ludicrous interruption of the solemn dignity of the scene oc- 
curred. In the place of Eaglesflight, whom Manytongues 
had given us reason to expect would now come forth with 
energy and power, a much younger warrior arose and spoke, 
commanding the attention of his listeners in a way to show 
that he possessed their respect. We were told that thL 
young warrior’s name, rendered into English, was Deers- 
foot, an appellation obtained on account of his speed, and 
which we were assured he well merited. Much to our sur- 
prise, however, he addressed himself to Jaaf, Indian courtesy 
requiring that something should be said to the constant friend 
and tried associate of the Trackless. The reader may be 
certain we were all much amused at this bit of homage, 
though every one of us felt some little concern on the sub- 
ject of the answer it might elicit. Deersfoot delivered him- 
self, substantially, as follows: — 

“The Great Spirit sees all things; he makes all things. 
In his eyes, colour is nothing. Although he made children 
that he loved of a red colour, he made children that he loved 
with pale-faces, too. He did not stop there. No ; he said, 
‘ I wish to see warriors and men with faces darker than the 
skin of the bear. I will have warriors who shall frighten 
their enemies by their countenances.’ Pie made black men. 
Mv father is black ; his skin is neither red, like the skin of 
Susquesus, nor while, like the skin of the young chief of 
Ravensnest. It is now grey, with having had the sun shine 
on it so many summers; but it was once the colour of the 
crow. I'hen it must have been pleasant to look at.— My 
VoL. II.— 16 


THE REDSKINS. 


182 

black father is very old. They tell me he is even older than 
the Upright Onondago. The Manitou must be well pleased 
with him, not to have called him away sooner. He has left 
him in his wigwam, that all the black men may see whom 
their Great Spirit loves. — This is the tradition told to us by 
our fathers. The pale men come from the rising sun, and 
were born before the heat burned their skins. The black 
men came from under the sun at noon-day, and their faces 
were darkened by looking up above their heads to admire 
the warmth that ripened their fruits. The red men were 
born under the setting sun, and their faces were coloured 
by the hues of the evening skies. The red man was born 
here ; the pale man was born across the salt lake ,* the black 
man came from a country of his own, where the sun is al- 
ways above his head. What of that? We are brothers. 
The Thicklips (this was the name by which the strangers 
designated Jaaf, as we afterwards learned) is the friend of 
Susquesus. They have lived in the same wigwam, now, 
so many winters, that their venison and bear’s-meat have 
the same taste. They love one another. Whomsoever Sus- 
quesus loves and honours, all just Indians love and honour. 
I have no more to say.” 

It is very certain that Jaaf would not have understood a 
syllable that was uttered, in this address, had not Many- 
tongues first given him to understand that Deersfoot was 
talking to him in particular, and then translated the speak- 
er’s language, word for word, and with great deliberation, 
as each sentence was finished. Even this care might not 
have sufficed to make the negro sensible of what was going 
j on, had not Patt gone to him, and told him in a manner and 
I voice to which he was accustomed, to attend to what was 
j said, and to endeavour, as soon as Deersfoot sat down, to 
I say something in reply. Jaaf was so accustomed to my 
I sister, and was so deeply impressed with the necessity of 

I obeying her, as one of his many ‘ y’ung missuses ,’ — which 

I he scarcely }fnew himself, — that she succeeded in perfectly 
' arousing him ; and he astonished us all with the intelligence 
I of his very characteristic answer, which he did not fail to 
I deliver exactly as he had been directed to do. Previously 
I to beginning to speak, the negro champed his toothless 
gums together, like a vexed swine ; but ‘ y’ung missus’ had 


— . — ^ 

THE REDSKINS. 183 

told him he must answer, and answer he did. It is proba- 
ble, also, that the old fellow had some sort of recollection 
of such scenes, having been present, in his younger days, 
at various councils held by the different tribes of New York; 
among whom my grandfather, Gen. Mordaunt Littlepage, 
had more than once been a commissioner. 

“ Well,” Jaaf began, in a short, snappish manner, “ s’pose 
nigger must say somet’in’. No berry great talker, ’cause I 
no Injin. Nigger hab too much work to do, to talk all ’e 
time. What you say ’bout where nigger come from, isn’t 
true. He come from Africa, as I hear ’em say, ’long time 
ago. Ahs, me! how ole I do get! Sometime I t’ink poor 
ole black man be nebber to lie down and rest himself. It 
do seem dat ebberybody take his rest but old Sus and me. 

I berry strong, yet ; and git stronger and stronger, dough 
won’erful tired ; but Sus, he git weaker and weaker ebbery 
day. Can’t last long, now, poor Sus ! Ebberybody must 
die, sometime. Ole, ole, ole Masser and Missus, fust dey 
die. Den Masser Corny go; putty well adwanced, too. 
Den come Masser Mordaunt’s turn, and Masser Malbone, 
and now dere anudder Masser Hugh. Well, dey putty 
much all de sames to me. I lubs ’em all, and all on ’em 
lubs me. Den Miss Duss count for somet’in’, but she be 
libbin’, yet. Most time she die, too, but don’t seem to go. 
Ahs, me ! how ole I do git ! Ha ! dere comes dern debbils 
of Injins, ag’in, and dis time we must clean ’em out ! Get 
your rifle, Sus ; get your rifle, boy, and mind dat ole Jaaf 
be at your elbow.” 

Sure enough, there the Injins did come ; but I must re- 
serve an account of what followed for the commencement 
of 


184 


THE REDSKINS . 


CHAPTER XIII. 

« Hope — that thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit 
Remember’d and revenged when thou art gone ; 

Sorrow — that none are left thee to inherit 

Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne.” 

Red Jacket. 

It was a little remarkable that one as old and blear-eyed 
as the negro, should be the first among us to discover the 
approach of a large body of the Injins, who could not be 
less than two hundred in number. The circumstance was 
probably owing to the fact that, while every other eye was 
riveted on the speaker, his eyes were fastened on nothing. 
There the Injins did come, however, in force ; and this time, 
apparently, without fear. The white American meets the 
red-man with much confidence, when he is prepared for the 
struggle ; and the result has shown that, when thrown upon 
his resources, in the wilderness, and after he has been al- 
lowed time to gain a little experience, he is usually the most 
formidable enemy. But a dozen Indians, of the stamp of 
those who had here come to visit us, armed and painted, and 
placed in the centre of one of our largest peopled counties, 
would be sufficient to throw that county into a paroxysm of 
fear. Until time were given for thought, and the opinions 
of the judicious superseded the effects of rumour, nothing 
but panic would prevail. Mothers would clasp their chil- 
dren to their bosoms, fathers would hold back their sons 
from the slaughter, and even the heroes of the militia would 
momentarily forget their ardour in the suggestions of pru- 
dence and forethought. 

Such, in fact, had been the state of things in and about 
Ravensnest, when Flintyheart so unexpectedly led his com- 
panions into the forest, and dispersed the virtuous and op- 
pressed tenants of my estate on their return from a meeting 
held with but one virtuous object; viz., that of transferring 
the fee of the farms they occupied, from me to themselves. 
No one doubted, at the moment, that in addition to the other 
enormities ' committed by me and mine, I had obtained a 


THE RED SKINS. 


185 

body of savages from the far West, to meet the forces al- 
ready levied by the tenants, on a principle that it would not 
do to examine very clearly. If I had done so, I am far from j 

certain that I should not have been perfectly justified in j 

morals ; for an evil of that nature, that might at any time 
be put down in a month, and which is suffered to exist 
for years, through the selfish indifference of the community, 
restores to every man his natural rights of self-defence,' 
though I make no doubt, had I resorted to such means, I 
should have been hanged, without benefit of philanthropists; 
the ‘ clergy’ in this country not being included in the class, 
so far as suspension by the neck is concerned. 

But the panic had disappeared, as soon as the truth be- 
came known concerning the true object of the visit of the 
redskins. The courage of the ‘‘virtuous and honest” re- 
vived, and one of the first exhibitions of this renewed spirit was 
the attempt to set fire to my house and barns. So serious a 
demonstration, it was thought, would convince me of the real 
power of the people, and satisfy us all that their wishes are 
not to be resisted with impunity. As no one likes to have 
his house and barns burned, it must be a singular being 
who could withstand the influence of such a manifestation 
of the “ spirit of the Institutions for it is just as reasonable 
to suppose that the attempts of the incendiaries came within 
their political category, as it is to suppose that the attempt 
of the tenants to get a title beyond what was bestowed in 
their leases, was owing to this cause. 

That habit of deferring to externals, which is so general 
in a certain class of our citizens, and which endures in mat- 
ters of religion long after the vital principle is forgotten, 
prevented any serious outbreak on the next day, which was 
the Sunday mentioned ; though the occasion was improved 
to coerce by intimidation, the meeting and resolutions 
having been regularly digested in secret conclave, among 
the local leaders of anti-rentism, and carried out, as has 
been described. Then followed the destruction of the cano- 
py, another demonstration of the “ spirit of the Institutions,” 
and as good an argument as any that has yet been offered, 
in favour of the dogmas of the new political faith. Public 
opinion is entitled to some relief, surely, when it'betrays so 
much excitement as to desecrate churches and to destroy 
16 * 


THE REDSKIN.S. 


186 

private property. This circumstance of the canopy had 
been much dwelt on, as a favourite anti-rent argument, and 
it might now be considered that the subject was carried out 
to demonstration. 

By the time all this was etFected, so completely had the 
“ Injins” got over their dread of the Indians, that it was with 
difficulty the leaders of the former could prevent the most 
heroic portion of their corps from following their blow at 
the canopy by a covp de main against the old farm-house, 
and its occupants. Had not the discretion of the leaders 
been greater than that of their subordinates, it is very pro- 
bable blood would have been shed, between these quasi bel- 
ligerents. But the warriors of the Prairies were the guests 
of Uncle Sam, and the old gentleman, after all, has a long 
arm, and can extend it from Washington to Ravensnest 
without much effort. He was not to be offended heedlessly, 
therefore; for his power was especially to be dreaded in 
this matter of the covenants, without which Injins and agi- 
tation would be altogether unnecessary to attaining the great 
object, the Albany politicians being so well disposed to do 
all they can for the “ virtuous and honest.” Uncle Sam’s 
Indians, consequently, were held a good deal more in respect 
than the laws of the State, and they consequently escaped 
being murdered^In their sleep. 

When Jaaf first drew our attention to the Injins, they 
were advancing, in a long line, by the highway, and at a 
moderate pace; leaving us time to shift our own position, 
did we deem it necessary. My uncle was of opinion it 
would never do to remain out on the lawn, exposed to so 
great a superiority of force, and he took his measures ac- 
cordingly, In the first place, the females, mistresses and 
maids— and there were eight or ten of the last — were re- 
quested to retire, at once, to the house. The latter, with 
John at their head, were directed to close all the lower, out- 
side shutters of the building, and secure them within. This 
done, and the gate and two outer doors fastened, it would 
not^ be altogether without hazard to make an assault on our 
fortress. A-s no one required a second request to move, 
this part of the precautions was soon effected, and the house 
placed in a species of temporary security. 

While the foregoing was in the course of execution, Sus- 


THE REDSKINS 


187 

quesus and Jaaf were induced to change their positions, by 
transferring themselves to the piazza. That change was 
made, and the two old fellows were comfortably seated in 
their chairs, again, before a single man of the redskins 
moved a foot. There they all remained, motionless as so 
many statues, with the exception that Flintyheart seemed to 
be reconnoitring with his eyes, the thicket that fringed the 
neighbouring ravine, and which formed a bit of dense cover, 
as already described, of some considerable extent. 

“ Do you wish the redskins in the house. Colonel ?” asked 
the interpreter, coolly, when matters had reached to this 
pass ; “ if you do, it ’s time to speak, or, they ’ll soon be off, 
like a flock of pigeons, into that cover. There ’ll be a fight 
as sarlain as they move, for there ’s no more joke and 
making of faces about them critturs, than there is about a 
mile-stone. So, it ’s best to speak in time.’’ 

No delay occurred after this hint was given. The request 
of my uncle Ro that the chiefs would follow the Upright 
Onondago, was just in time to prevent a flight; in the sense 
of Manytongues, I mean, for it was not very likely these 
warriors would literally run away. It is probable that they 
would have preferred the cover of the woods as more natu- 
ral and familiar to them, — but, I remarked, as the whole 
party came on the piazza, that Flintyheart, in particular, 
cast a quick, scrutinizing glance at the house, which said 
in pretty plain language that he was examining its capa- 
bilities as a work of defence. The movement, however, 
was made with perfect steadiness; and, what most surprised 
us allj was the fact that not one of the chiefs appeared to pay 
the slightest attention to their advancing foes; or, men 
whom it was reasonable for them to suppose so considered 
themselves to be. We imputed this extraordinary reserve 
to force of character, and a desire to maintain a calm and 
dignified deportment in the presence of Susquesus. If it 
were really the latter motive that so completely restrained 
every exhibition of impatience, apprehension, or disquietude, 
they had every reason to congratulate themselves on the 
entire success of their characteristic restraint on their 
feelings. 

The Injins were just appearing on the lawn as our 
arrangements were completed. John had come to report 


188 THE REDSKINS. 

every shutter secure, and the gate and little door barred. 
He also informed us that all the men and boys who could 
be mustered, including gardeners, labourers, and stable peo- 
ple, to the number of five or six, were in the little passage, 
armed ; where rifles were ready also for ourselves. In 
short, the preparations that had been made by my grand- 
mother, immediately after her arrival, were now of use, and 
enabled us to make a much more formidable resistance, sus- 
tained as we were by the party from the Prairies, than I 
could have ever hoped for on so sudden an emergency. 

Our arrangement was very simple. The ladies were 
seated near the great door, in order that they might be 
placed under dover the first, in the event of necessity ; Sus- 
quesus and Jaaf had their chairs a little on one side, but 
quite near this group, and the men from the far West occu- 
pied the opposite end of the piazza, whither the benches had 
been removed, for their accommodation. Manytongues 
stood between the two divisions of our company, ready to 
interpret for either; while my uncle, myself, .John, and two 
or three of the other servants took position behind our aged 
friends. Seneca and his fellow-incendiary were in the 
midst of the chiefs. 

It was just as the Injins had got fairly on the lawn that 
we heard the clattering of hoofs, and every eye was turned 
in the direction whence the sound proceeded. Thisjwas on 
the side of the ravine, and to me it seemed from the first 
that some one was approaching us through that dell. So it 
proved, truly ; for soon Opportunity came galloping up the 
path, and appeared in sight. She did not check her horse 
until under the tree, where she alighted, by a single bound, 
and hitching the animal to a hook in the tree, she moved 
swiftly towards the house. My sister Patt advanced to the 
steps of the piazza to receive this unexpected guest, and I 
was just behind her to make my bow. But the^ salutations 
of Opportunity were hasty and far from being very com- 
posed. She glanced around her, ascertained the precise con- 
dition of her brother, — and, taking my arm, she led me into 
the library with very little, or, indeed, with no. ceremony; 
for, to give this young woman her due, she was a person of 
gr,eat energy when there was anything serious to be done. 
The only sign of deviating, in the slightest degree, from the 


THE REDSKINS. 189 

object in view, was pausing one instant, in passing, to make 
her compliments to my grandmother. 

What, in the name of wonder, do you mean to do with 
Sen 7” demanded this active young lady, looking at me in- 
tently, with an expression half-hostile, half-tender. “ You 
are standing over an earthquake, Mr. Hugh, if you did but 
know it.” 

Opportunity had confounded the effect with the cause, 
but that was of little moment on an occasion so interest- 
ing. She was much in earnest, and I had learned by expe- 
rience that her hints and advice might be of great service 
to us at the Nest. 

“ To what particular danger do you allude, my dear Op- 
portunity 7” 

I “Ah, Hugh! if things was only as they used to be, how 
I happy might we all be together here at Ravensnest ! But, 

I there is no time to talk of such things; for, as Sarah Sooth- 

ihgs says, ‘ the heart is most monopolized when grief is the 
profoundest, and it is only when our sentiments rise freely 
j to the surface of the imagination, that the mind escapes the 
! shackles of thraldom.’ But, I haven’t a minute for Sarah 
I Soothings, even, just now. Don’t you see the Injins 7” 

“ Quite plainly ; and they probably see my ‘ Indians.’ ” 

“ Oh ! they don’t regard them now the least in the 
world. At first, when they thought you might have hired 
j a set of desperate wretches to scalp the folks, there was 

I some misgivings; but the whole story is now known, and 

i nobody cares a straw about them. If anybody’s scalp is 

taken, ’t will be their own. Why, the whole country is up, 
and the report has gone forth, far and near, that you have 
brought in with you a set of blood-thirsty savages from the 
prairies to cut the throats of women and children, and drive 
off the tenants, that you may get all the farms into your 
own hands before the lives Ibll in. Some folks say, these 
savages have had a list of all the lives named in your leases 
given to them, and that they are to make way with all 
such people first, that you may have the law as much as 
possible on your side. You stand on an earthquake, Mr. 
Hugh ; — you do, indeed !” 

“ My dear Opportunity,” I answered, laughing, “ I am 
infinitely obliged to you for all this attention to my interests, 


THE REDSKINS. 


190 

and freely own that on Saturday night you were of great 
service to me; but I must now think that you magnify the 
danger — that you colour the picture too high.” 

“ Not in the least. 1 do protest, you stand on an earth- 
quake ; and as your friend, I have ridden over here to tell 
you as much, while there is yet time.” 

“ To get off it, I suppose you mean. But how can all 
these evil and 'blood-thirsty reports be abroad, when the 
characters of the Western Indians are, as you own yourself, 
understood, and the dread of them that did exist in the 
town has entirely vanished? There is a contradiction in 
this.” 

“ Why, you know how it is, in anti-rent times. When 
an excitement is needed, folks don’t stick at facts very 
closely, but repeat things, and make things, just as it hap- 
pens to be convenient.” 

“ True ; I can understand this, and have no difficulty in 
believing you now. But have you come here this morning 
simply to let me know the danger which besets me from 
this quarter ?” 

“ I believe I ’m always only too ready to gallop over to 
the Nest ! But everybody has some weakness or other, and 
I suppose I am to be no exception to the rule,” returned Op- 
portunity, who doubtless fancied the moment propitious to 
throw in a volley towards achieving her great conquest, 
and who reinforced that volley of words with such a glance 
of the eye, as none but a most practised picaroon on the 
sea of flirtation could have thrown. “But, Hugh — I call 
you Hugh, Mr. Littlepage, for you seem more like Hugh to 
me, than like the proud, evil-minded aristocrat, and hard- 
hearted landlord, that folks want to make you out to be — 
but I never could have told you what I did last night, had I 
supposed it would bring Sen into this difficulty.” 

“ I can very well understand how' unpleasantly you are 
situated as respects your brother. Opportunity, and your 
friendly services will not be forgotten in the management of 
his affairs.” 

“ If you are of this mind, why won’t you suffer these 
Injins to get him out of the hands of your real savages,” 
returned Opportunity, coaxingly. “ I ’ll promise for him, 


THE REDSKINS. 191 

that Sen will go ofT, and stay off for some months, if you 
insist on ’t ; when all is forgotten, he can come back again/’ 

“ Is the release of your brother, then, the object of this 
visit from the Injins I” 

“ Partly so — they ’re bent on having him. Pie ’s in all 
the secrets of the anti-renters, and they ’re afraid for their 
very lives, so long as he ’s in your hands. Should he get 
a little scared, and give up only one-quarter of what he 
knows, there ’d be no peace in the county for a twelve- 
month.” 

At this instant, and before there was time to make an an- 
swer, I was summoned to the piazza, the Injins approach- 
ing so near as to induce my uncle to step to the door and 
call my name in a loud voice. I was compelled to quit 
Opportunity, who did not deem it prudent to show herself 
among us, though her presence in the house, as an inter- 
cessor for her brother, could excite neither surprise nor re- 
sentment. 

When I reached the piazza, the Injins had advanced as 
far as the tree where we had first been posted, and there 
they had halted, seemingly for a conference. In their rear, 
Mr. Warren was walking hurriedly towards us, keeping the 
direct line, regardless of those whom be well knew to be 
inimical to him, and intent only on reaching the house 
before it could be gained by the ‘ disguised and armed.’ 
This little circumstance gave rise to an incident of touching 
interest, and which I cannot refrain from relating, though 
it may interrupt the narration of matters that others may 
possibly think of more moment. 

Mr. Warren. did not pass directly through the crowd of 
rioters — for such those people were, in effect, unless the 
epithet should be changed to the still more serious one of 
rebels — but he made a little detour, in order to prevent a 
collision that was unnecessary. When about half-way be- 
Iween the tree and the piazza, however, the Injins gave a 
discordant yell, and many of them sprang forward, as if in 
haste to overtake, and probably to arrest, him. Just as we 
all involuntarily arose, under a common feeling of interest 
in the fate of the good rector, Mary darted from the piazza, 
was at her father’s side and in his arms so quickly, as to 
seem to have flown there. Clinging to his side, she ap- 


THE'REDSKINS. 


I 192 

j peared to urge him towards us. But Mr. Warren adopted 
I a course much wiser than that of flight would have been, 

i Conscious of having said or done no more than his duty, 

i he stopped and faced his pursuers. The act of Mary War- 

i ren had produced a check to the intended proceedings of 
I these lawless men, and the calm, dignified aspect of the 
I divine completed his conquest. The leaders of the Injins 

i paused, conferred together, when all who had issued from 

the main body returned to their companions beneath the 
tree, leaving Mr. Warren and his charming daughter at 
liberty to join us unmolested, and with decorum. 

The instant Mary Warren left the piazza on her pious 
errand, I sprang forward to follow her with an impulse I 
could not control. Although my own power over this im- 
. pulsive movement was so small, that of my uncle and grand- 
mother was greater. The former seized the skirt of my 
frock, and held me back by main strength, while the light 
I touch of the latter had even greater power. Both remon- 
j strated, and with so much obvious justice, that I saw the 
folly of what I was about in an instant, and abandoned my 
‘design. Had I fallen into the hands of the anti-renters, 
their momentary triumph, at least, would have been com- 
plete. 

Mr. Warren ascended the steps of the piazza with a mien 
as unaltered, and an air as undisturbed, as if about to enter 
{ his own church. The good old gentleman had so schooled 

I his feelings, and was so much accustomed to view himself 

j as especially protected, or as so ready to suffer, when in 

I the discharge of any serious duty, that I have had occasions 

! to ascertain fear was unknown to him. As for Mary, never 

j had she appeared so truly lovely, as she ascended the steps, 

j still clinging fondly and confidingly to his arm. The ex- 

j citement of such a scene had brought more than the usual 

j quantity of blood into her face, and the brilliancy of her 

j eyes was augmented by that circumstance, perhaps; but I 

I fancied that a more charming picture of feminine softness, 

I blended with the self-devotion of the child, could not have 

j been imagined by the mind of man. 

I Patt, dear, generous girl, sprang forward to embrace her 
I friend, which she did with warmth and honest fervour, and 
I my venerable grandmother kissed her on both cheeks, while 

[ ■ 


THE REDSKINS. 193 

the other two girls were not backward in giving the cus- 
tomary signs of the sympathy of their sex. My uncle Ro 
even went so far as gallantly to kiss her hand, causing the 
poor girl’s face to be suffused with blushes, while poor Hugh 
was obliged to keep in the back-ground, and content him- 
self with looking his admiration. I got one glance, how- 
ever, from the sweet creature, that was replete with conso- 
lation, since it assured me that rny forbearance was under- 
stood, and attributed to its right motive. 

In that singular scene, the men of the prairies alone ap- 
peared to be unmoved. Even the domestics and workmen 
had betrayed a powerful interest in this generous act of 
Mary Warren’s, the females all screaming in chorus, very 
much as a matter of course. But, not an Indian moved. 
Scarce one turned his eyes from the countenance of Sus- 
quesus, though all must have been conscious that something 
of interest was going on so near them, by the concern we 
betrayed ; and all certainly knew that their enemies were 
hard by. As respects the last, I have supposed the uncon- 
cern, or seeming unconcern of these western warriors, ought 
to be ascribed to the circumstance of the presence of the 
ladies, and an impression that there could be no very immi- 
nent risk of hostilities while the company then present re- 
mained together. The apathy of the chiefs seemed to be 
extended to the interpreter, who was coolly lighting his pipe 
at the very moment when the whole affair of the Warren 
episode occurred ; an occupation that was not interrupted 
by the clamour and confusion among ourselves. 

As there was a delay in the nearer approach of the Injins, 
there was leisure to confer together for a moment. Mr. 
Warren told us, therefore, that he had seen the ‘ disguised 
and armed’ pass the rectory, and had followed in order to 
act as a mediator between us and any contemplated harm. 

The destruction of the canopy of Hugh’s pew, must 
have given you a serious intimation that things were coming 
to a head,” observed my grandmother. 

Mr. Warren had not heard of the affair of the canopy, at 
all. Although living quite within sound of a hammer used 
in the church, everything had been conducted with so much 
management, that the canopy had been taken down, and 
removed bodily, without any one in the rectory’s knowing 

VoL. II.— 17 


THE REDSKINS. 


194 

the fact. The latter had become known at the Nest, solely 
by the circumstance that the object which had so lately 
canopied aristocracy in St. Andrew’s, Ravensnest, was now 
canopying pigs up at the farm-house. The good divine 
expressed his surprise a little strongly, and, as I thought, 
his regrets a little indifferently. He was not one to counte- 
nance illegality and violence, and least of all that peculiarly 
American vice, envy ; but, on the other hand, he was not 
one to look with favour on the empty distinctions, as set up 
between men equally sinners and in need of grace to redeem 
them from a common condemnation, in the house of God. 

As the grave is known to be the great leveller of the human 
race, so ought the church to be used as a preparatory step 
in descending to the plain that all must occupy, in spirit at 
least, before they can hope to be elevated to any, even of 
the meanest places, among the many mansions of our Fa- 
ther’s house ! 

There was but a short breathing time given us, however, 
before the Injins again advanced. It was soon evident they 
did not mean to remain mere idle spectators of the scene 
that was in the course of enactment on the piazza, but that 
it was their intention to become actors, in some mode or 
other. Forming themselves into a line, that savoured a 
great deal more of the militia of this great republic than 
of the warriors of the west, they came on tramping, with 
the design of striking terror into our souls. Our arrange- ' 
ments were made, however, and on our part every thing was 
conducted just as one could have wished. The ladies, in- 
fluenced by my grandmother, retained their seats, near the 
door; the men of the household were standing, but con- 
tinued stationary, while not an Indian stirred. As for Sus- 
quesus, he had lived far beyond surprises and all emotions 
of the lower class, and the men of the prairies appeared to 
take their cues from him. So long as he continued immov- 
able, they seemed disposed to remain immovable also. 

The distance between the tree and the piazza, did not 
much exceed a hundred yards^ and little time was necessary 
to march across it. I remarked, however, that, contrary to 
the laws of attraction, the nearer the Injins’ line got to its 
goal, the slower and more unsteady its movement became. 

It also lost its formation, bending into curves, though its 


THE REDSKINS 


195 

tramps became louder and louder, as if those who were in 
£t, wished to keep alive their own courage by noise. When 
within fifty feet of the steps, they ceased to advance at all, 
merely stamping with their feet, as il’ hoping to frighten us 
into flight. I thought this a favourable moment to do that 
which it had been decided between my uncle and myself 
ought to be done by me, as owner of the property these law- 
less men had thus invaded. Stepping to the front of the 
piazza, I made a sign for attention. The tramping ceased 
all at once, and I had a profound silence for my speech. 

“ You know me, all of you,” I said, quietly I know, and 
I trust firmly ,* “ and you know, therefore, that I am the 

owner of this house and these lands. As such owner, I 

order every man among you to quit the place, and to go 
, into the highway, or upon the property of some other per- 
' son. Whoever remains, after this notice, will bo a tres- 

I passer, and the evil done by a trespasser is doubly serious 

I in the eyes of the law.” 

' I uttered these words loud enough to be heard by every 
I body present, but I cannot pretend that they were attended 
j by much success. The calico bundles turned towards each 
other, and there was an appearance of a sort of commotion, 
but the leaders composed the people, the omnipotent people 
I in this instance, as they do in most others. The sovereignty 
! of the mass is a capital thing as a principle, and once in a 
: long while it evinces a great good in practice ; in a certain 
sense, it is always working good, by holding a particular 
I class of most odious and intolerable abuses in check ; but, 
I as for the practice of every-day political management, their 
i imperial majesties, the sovereigns of America, of whom I 
happen to be one, have quite as little connection with the 
measures they are made to seem to demand, and to sustain, 
as the Nawab of Oude ; if the English, who are so disin- 
terested as to feel a generous concern for the rights of man- 
kind, whenever the great republic adds a few acres to the 
small paternal homestead, have left any such potentate in 
existence. 

So it was with the decision of the “ disguised and armed,” 
! on the occasion I am describing. They decided that no 
other notice should be taken of my summons to quit, than a 
contemptuous yell, though they had to ascertain from their 


196 * the REDSKINS. 

leaders what they had decided before they knew themselves. 
The shout was pretty general, notwhhstanding, and it had 
one good effect ; tliat of satisfying the Injins, themselves, 
that they had made a clear demonstration of their contempt 
of my authority, which they fancied victory sufficient for 
the moment; nevertheless, the demonstration did not end 
exactly here. Certain cries, and a brief dialogue, succeeded, 
which it may be well to record. 

“ King Littlepage,” called out one, from among the ‘ dis- 
guised and armed,’ what has become of your throne? St. 
Andrew’s meeting-’us’ has lost its monarch’s throne!” 

“ His pigs have set up for great aristocrats of late; pre- 
sently they’ll want to be patroons.” 

“ Hugh Littlepage, be a man ; come down to a level with 
your fellow-citizens, and don’t think yourself any bettei 
than other folks. You ’re but flesh and blood, a’ter all.” 

“ Why don’t you invite me to come and dine with you, 
as well as priest Warren ? I can eat, as w'ell as any man 
in the county, and as much.” 

“Yes, and he’ll drink, too, Hugh Littlepage; so provide 
your best liquor the day he ’s to be invited.” 

All this passed for wit among the Injins, and among that 
portion of the “ virtuous and honest and hard-working,” who 
not only kept them on foot, but on this occasion kept them 
company also; it having since been ascertained that about 
one-half of that band was actually composed of the tenants 
of the Ravensnest farms. I endeavoured to keep' myself 
cool, and succeeded pretty well, considering the inducements 
thei;^ \vere to be angry. Argument with such men was out 
of the question, — and knowing their numbers and physical 
superiority, they held my legal rights in contempt. What 
was probably worse than all, they knew that the law itself 
was administered by the people, and that they had little to 
apprehend, and did apprehend virtually nothing from any 
of the pains and penalties it might undertake to inflict, should 
recourse be had to it at any future day. Ten or a dozen 
wily agents sent through the country to circulate lies, and 
to visit the county town previously to, and during a trial, in 
order to raise a party that will act more or less directly on 
the minds of the jurors, with a newspaper or two to scatter 
untruths and prejudices, would at least be as effective, at 


THE REDSKINS 


197 

the critical moment, as the law, the evidence, and the right. 
As for the judges, and their charges, they have lost most of 
their influence, under the operation of this nefarious system, 
and count but for very little in the administration of justice, 
either at Nisi Prius or at Oyer Terminer. These are me* 
lancholy truths, that any man who quits his theories and 
descends into the arena of practice will soon ascertain to be 
such, to his wonder and alarm, if he be a novice and an 
honest man. A portion of this unhappy state of things is a 
consequence of the legislative tinkering that has destroyed 
one of the most healthful provisions of the common law, in 
prohibiting the judges to punish for contempt, unless for out- 
rages committed in open court. The press, in particular, 
now profits by this impunity, and influences the decision of 
nearly every case that can at all enlist public feeling. All 
these things men feel, and few who are wrong care for the 
law ; for those who are right, it is true, there is still some 
danger. My uncle Ro says America is no more like what 
America was in this respect twenty years since, than Kamt- 
schatka is like Italy. For myself, I wish to state the truth; 
exaggerating nothing, nor yet taking refuge in a dastardly 
concealment. 

Unwilling to be browbeaten on the threshold of my own 
door, I determined to say something ere I returned to my 
place. Men like these before me can never understand that 
silence proceeds from contempt ; and I fancied it best to 
make some sort of a reply to the speeches I have recorded, 
and to twenty more of the same moral calibre. Motioning 
for silence, I again obtained it. 

“ I have ordered you to quit my lawn, in the character 
of its owner,” I said, “ and, by remaining, you make your- 
selves trespassers. As for what you have done to my 
pew, I should thank you for it, had it not been done in vio- 
lation of the right ; for it was fully my intention to have 
that canopy removed as soon as the feeling about it had 
subsided. I am as much opposed to distinctions of any 
sort in the house of God as any of you can be, and desire 
them not for myself, or any belonging to me. I ask for 
nothing but equal rights with all my fellow-citizens ; that 
my propertj' should be as much protected as theirs^ but not 
17 ^ 


198 


THE REDSKINS. 


more so. Bui, I do not conceive that you or any man has 
a right to ask to share in my world’s goods any more than 
I have a right to ask to share in his ; that y^ou can more 
justly claim a portion of my lands than I can clj^m a share 
in your cattle and crops. It is a poor rule that does not 
work both ways.” 

“You’re an aristocrat,” cried one from among the In- 
jins, “ or you ’d be willing to let other men have as much 
land as you ’ve got yourself. You ’re a patroon ; and all 
patroons are aristocrats, and hateful.” 

“ An aristocrat,” I answered, “ is one of a few who wield 
political power. The highest birth, the largest fortune, the 
most exclusive association would not make an aristocrat, 
without the addition of a narrow political power. In this 
country there are no aristocrats, because there is no narrow 
political power. There is, however, a spurious aristocracy 
which you do not recognize, merely because it does not 
happen to be in the hands of gentlemen. Demagogues and 
editors are your privileged classes, and consequently your 
aristocrats, and none others. As for your landlord aristo- 
crats, listen to a true tale, which will satisfy you how far 
they deserve to be called an aristocracy. Mark ! what I 
now tell you is religious truth, and it deserves to be known, 
far and near, wherever your cry of aristocracy reaches. 
There is a landlord in this State, a man of large means, 
who became liable for the debts of another to a considerable 
amouiii. At the very moment when his rents could not be 
collected, owing to yoitr interference and the remissness of 
those in authority to enforce the laws, the sheriff entered kia 
house, and sold its contents, in order to satisfy an execution 
against him! There is American aristocracy for you, and 
I am sorry to add American justice, as justice has got to be 
administered among us.” 

1 was not disappointed in the effect of this narration of 
what is a sober truth. Wherever I have told it, it has con- 
founded even the most brawling demagogue, and momenta- 
rily revived in his breast some of those principle® of right 
which God originally planted there. American aristocracy, 
in sooth ! Fortunate is the gentleman that can obtain even 
a reluctant and meagre justice. 


THE REDSKINS. 199 


CHAPTER XIV. 

«How far that little candle throws his beams; 

So shiues a good deed in a naughty world.” 

Shakspeahe. 

I HAVE said that my narrative of the manner in which 
justice is sometimes meted out among us was not without 
its effect on even that rude band of selfish and envious riot- 
ers : rude, because setting at naught reason and the law; 
and selfish, because induced so to do by covetousness, and 
the desire to substitute the tenants for those whom they fan- 
cied to be belter off in the world than they were themselves. 
A profound stillness succeeded ; and after the bundles of 
calico had whispered one with another for a moment or two, 
they remained quiet, seemingly indisposed, just then, at least, 
to molest us any farther. I thought the moment favourable, 
and fell back to my old station, determined to let things take 
their own course. This change, and the profound stillness 
that succeeded, brought matters back to the visit of the In- 
dians, and its object. 

During the whole time occupied by the advance of the 
“ Injins,” the men of the prairies and Susquesus had conti- 
nued nearly as motionless as so many statues. It is true 
that the eyes of Flintyheart were on the invaders, but he 
managed to take good heed of them without betraying any 
undue uneasiness or care. Beyond this, I do affirm that I 
scarce noted a single sign of even vigilance among these 
extraordinary beings * though Manytongues afterwards gave 
me to understand that they knew very well what they were 
about ; and then I could not be watching the red-men the 
whole time. Now that there was a pause, however, every 
body and thing seemed to revert to the original visit, as natu- 
rally as if no interruption had occurred. Manytongues, by 
way of securing attention, called on the Injins, in an autho- 
ritative voice, to offer no interruption to the proceedings ot 
the chiefs, which had a species of religious sanctity, and was 
not D be. too much interfered with, with impunity. 


THE REDSKINS. 


200 

‘ So long as you keep quiet, my warriors will not molest 
you,” he added ; “ but if any man amongst you has ever 
been on the prer-ies, he must understand enough of the natur 
of a redskin to know that when he’s in ’airnest he is in 
’airnest. Men who are on a journey three thousand rnilea 
in length, don’t turn aside for trifles, which is a sign that 
serious business has brought these chiefs here.” 

Whether it was that this admonition produced an effect, 
or that curiosity influenced the “ disguised and armed,” or 
that they did not choose to proceed to extremities, or that 
all three considerations had their weight, is more than I can 
say ; but it is certain the whole band remained stationary, 
quiet and interested observers of what now occurred, until 
an interruption took place, which will be related in proper 
time. Manytongues, w’ho had posted himself near the centre 
of the piazza, to interpret, now signified to the chiefs that 
they might pursue their own purposes in tranquillity. After 
a decent pause, the same young warrior who had “called 
up” Jaaf, in the first instance, now rose again, and with a 
refinement in politeness that would be looked for in vain in 
most of the deliberative bodies of civilized men, adverted to 
the circumstance that the negro had not finished his address, 
and might have matter on his mind of which he wished to 
be delivered. This was said simply, but distinctly ; and it 
was explained to the negro by Manytongues, who assured 
him not one among all the chiefs would say a word until 
the last person “ on his legs” had an opportunity of finish- 
ing his address. This reserve marks the deportment of 
those whom we call savages; men that have their own 
fierce, and even ruthless customs, beyond all controversy, 
but who possess certain other excellent qualities that do not 
appear to flourish in the civilized state. 

It was with a good deal of difficulty that we got old Jaaf 
up again ; for, though a famous grumbler, he was not much 
of an orator. As it was understood that no chief would 
speak, however, until the black had exhausted his right, my 
dear Patt had to go, and, laying one of her ivory-looking 
hands on the shoulder of the grim old negro, persuade him 
to rise and finish his speech. He knew her, and she suc- 
ceeded ; it being worthy of remark, that while this aged 
black scarce remembered for an hour what occurred, con- 


THE REDSKINS. 201 

founding dates fearfully, often speaking of my grandmother 
as Miss Dus, and as if she were still a girl, he knew every 
one of the family then living, and honoured and loved us 
accordingly, at the very moments he would fancy we had 
been present at scenes that occurred when our great-grand- 
parents were young people. But to the speech — 

“ What all dem fellow want, bundle up in calico, like so 
many squaw ?” growled out Jaaf, as soon as on his legs, 
and looking intently at the Injins, ranged as they were in 
a line four deep, quite near the piazza. “ Why you let ’em 
come, Masser Hugh, Masser Hodge, Masser Malbone, Mas- 
ser Mordaunt — which you be here, now, I don’t know, dere 
so many, and it so hard to ’member ebbery t’ing? Oh ! I 
so ole ! — I do won’er when my time come ! Dere Sus, too, 
he good for nuttin’ at all. Once he great walker — great 
warrior — great hunter — pretty good fellow for redskin ; but 
he quite wore out. Don’t see much use \vhy he lib any 
longer. Injin good for nuttin’ when he can’t hunt. Some- 
time he make basket and broom ; but dey uses better broom 
now, and Injin lose dat business. What dem calico debbil 
want here, eh. Miss Patty 1 Dere redskin, too — two, t’ree, 
four — all come to see Sus. Won’er nigger don’t come to 
see me/ Ole black good as ole red-man. Where dem fel- 
low get all dat calico, and put over deir face ? Massei 
Hodge, what all dat mean 1” 

“These are anti-renters, Jaaf,” my uncle coldly answer- 
ed, “ Men that wish to own your Master Hugh’s farms, 
and relieve him from the trouble of receiving any more rent. 
They cover their faces, I presume, to conceal their blushes, 
the modesty of their natures sinking under the sense of 
their own generosity.” 

Although it is not very probable that Jaaf understood 
the whole of this speech, he comprehended a part; for, so 
thoroughly had. his feelings been aroused on this subject, a 
year or two earlier, when his mind was not quite so much 
dimmed as at present, that the impression made was indeli- 
ble. The effect of what my uncle said, nevertheless, was 
most apparent among the Injins, who barely escaped an 
outbreak. My uncle has been blamed for imprudence, in 
having resorted to irony on such an occasion ; but, after all, 
1 am- far from sure good did not come of it. Of one thing, 


THE REDSKINS. 


202 

1 am certain ; nothing is ever gained by temporizing on the 
subject of principles; that which is right, had better always 
be freely said, since it is from the sacrifices that are made 
of the truth, as concessions to expediency, that error ob- 
tains one-half its power. Policy, or fear, or some other 
motive kept the rising ire of the Injins under, however, and 
- no interruption occurred, in consequence of this speech. 

“What you want here, fellow?” demanded Jaaf, rough- 
ly, and speaking as a scold would break out on some in- 
trusive boy. “ Home wid ye ! — get out ! Oh ! I do grow 
so ole ! — I wish I was as I was when young for your sake^ 
you varmint ! What you want wid Masser Hugh’s land ? — 
why dat you t’ink to get gentle’em’s property, eh ? ’Mem- 
ber ’e time when your fadder come creepin’ and beggin’ to 
Masser Mordy, to ask just little farm to lib on, and be he 
tenant, and try to do a little for he family, like ; and now 
come, in calico bundle, to tell my Masser Hugh dat he shan’t 
be masser of he own land. VVho yow, I w'ant to know, to 
come and talk to gentle’em in dis poor fashion ? Go home 
• — get out — off wid you, or you hear what you don’t like.” 

Now, while there was a good deal of “ nigger” in this 
argument, it was quite as good as that which was sometimes 
advanced in support of the “spirit of the Institutions,” more 
especially that part of the latter which is connected with 
“aristocracy” and “ poodle usages.” The negro had an 
idea that all his “ massers,” old and young, were better than 
the rest of the human race ; v/hile the advocates of the 
modern movement seem to think that every right is concen- 
trated in the lower half of the great “ republican family.” 
Every gentleman is no gentleman ; and every blackguard, 
a gentleman, for one postulate of their great social proposi- 
tion ; and, what is more, every man in the least elevated 
above the mass, unless so elevated by the mass, who con- 
sequently retain the power to pull him down again, has no 
rights at all, when put in opposition to the cravings of num- 
bers. So, that after all, the negro was not much more ou 
of the w'ay, in his fashion of viewing things, than the phi- 
losophers of industrious honesty ! Happily, neither the 
reasoning of one of these parties, nor that of the other, has 
much influence on the actual state of things. Facts are 
facts, and the flounderings of envy and covetousness can 


THE REDSKINS. 


203 

no more shut men’s eyes to their existence, and prove that 
black is white, than Jaaf’s long-enduring and besetting 
notion that the Litllepages are the great of the earth, can 
make us more than what we certainly are. I have recorded 
the negro’s speech, simply to show some, who listen only to 
the misstatements and opinions of those who wish to become 
owners of other men’s farms, that there are two sides to the 
question ; and, in the way of argument, I do not see but one 
is quite as good as the other. 

One could hardly refrain from smiling, notwithstanding 
the seriousness of the circumstances in which we were 
placed, at the gravity of the Indians during the continuance 
of this queer episode. Not one of them all rose, turned 
round, or manilested the least impatience, or even curiosity. 
The presence of two hundred armed men, bagged in calico, 
did not induce them to look about them, though their pre- 
vious experience with this gallant corps may possibly have 
led them to hold it somewhat cheap. 

The time had now come for the Indians to carry out the 
main design of their visit to Ravensnest, and Prairiefire 
slowly arose to speak. The reader will understand that 
Manytongues translated, sentence by sentence, all that pass- 
ed, he being expert in the different dialects of the tribes, some 
of which had carried that of the Onondagoes to the prairies. 
In this particular, the interpreter was a somewhat remark- 
able man, not only rendering what was said readily and 
Avithout hesitation, but energetically and with considerable 
power. It may be well to add, however, that in writing out 
the language I may have used English expressions that are 
a little more choice, in some instances, than those given by 
this uneducated person. 

“ Father,” commenced Prairiefire, solemnly, and with a 
dignity that it is not usual to find connected with modern 
oratory ; the gestures he used being few, but of singular force 
and significance — “ Father — the minds of your children are 
heavy. They have travelled over a long and thorny path, 
with moccasins worn out, and feet that were getting sore ; 
but their minds were light. They hoped to look at the face 
of the Upright Onondago, when they got to the end of the 
path. TTey have come to the end of that path, and they 
see him. He looks as they expected he would look. Ho 


204 


THE REDSKINS 


is like an oak that lightning may burn, and the snows cover 
with moss, but which a thousand storms and a hundred 
winters cannot strip of its leaves. He looks like the oldest 
oak in the forest. He is very grand. It is pleasant to look 
on him. When we sec him, we see a chief who knew our 
fathers’ fathers, and their fathers’ fathers. That is a long 
lime ago. He is a tradition, and knows all things. There 
is only one thing about him, that ought not to be. He was 
born a red-man, but has lived so long with the pale-faces, 
that when he does go away to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, 
we are afraid the good spirits will mistake him for a pale- 
face, and point out the wrong path. Should this happen, 
the red-men would lose the Upright of the Onondagoes, for 
ever. It should not be. My father does not wish it to 
be. He will think better. Fie will come back among his 
children, and leave his wisdom and advice among the peo- 
ple of his own colour. I ask him to do this. 

“ It is a long path, now, to the wigwams of red-men. It 
was not so once, but the path has been stretched. It is a 
very long path. Our young men travel it often, to visit the 
graves of their fathers, and they know how long it is. My 
tongue is not crooked, but it is straight; it will not sing a 
false song — it tells my father the truth. The path is very 
long. But the palc-faces are wonderful ! What have they 
not done? What will they not do? They have made 
canoes and sledges that fly swift as the birds. The deer 
could not catch them. They have wings of fire, and never 
weary. They go when men sleep. The path is long, but 
it is soon travelled with such wings. My father can make 
the journey, and not think of weariness. Let him try it. 
His children will take good care of him. Uncle Sam will 
give him venison, and he will want nothing. Then, when 
he starts for the Happy Hunting-Grounds, he will not mis- 
take the path, and will live with red-men for ever.” 

A long, solemn pause succeeded this speech, which was 
delivered with great dignity and emphasis. I could see that 
Susquesus was touched with this request, and at the homage 
paid his character, by having tribes from the prairies — 
tribes of which he had never even heard through traditions 
I’n his younger days — come so far to do justice to his 
character ; to request him to go and die in their midst. U 


I 


THE REDSKINS. 


205 


is true, he must have known that the fragments of the old 
New York tribes had mostly found their way to those dis- 
tant regions ; nevertheless, it could not but be soothing to 
learn that even they had succeeded in making so strong an 
impression in his favour, by means of their representations. 
Most men of his great age would have been insensible to feel- 
ings of this sort. Such, in a great degree, was the fact with 
Jaaf; but such was not the case with the Onondago. As he 
had said in his former speech to his visiters, his mind dwelt 
more on the scenes of his youth, and native emotions came 
fresher to his spirit, now, than they had done even in middle 
age. All that remained of his youthful fire seemed to be 
awakened, and he did not appear that morning, except when 
compelled to walk and in his outward person, to be a man 
who had seen much more than his three-score years and ten. 

As a matter of course, now that the chiefs from the prai 
ries had so distinctly made known the great object of their 
visit, and so vividly portrayed their desire to receive back, 
into the bosom of their communities, one of their colour 
and race, it remained for the Onondago to let the manner 
in which he viewed this proposition be known. The pro- 
found stillness that reigned around him must have assured 
the old Indian how anxiously his reply was expected. It 
extended even to the ‘ disguised and armed,’ who, by this 
time, seemed to be as much absorbed in the interest of this 
curious scene as any of us who occupied the piazza. I do 
believe that anti-rentisrn was momentarily forgotten by all 
parties — tenants, as well as landlords; landlords, as well as 
tenants. I dare say, Prairiefire had taken his seat three 
minutes ere Susquesus arose; during all which time, the 
deep stillness, of which I have spoken, prevailed. 

“ My children,” answered the Onondago, whose voice 
possessed just enough of the hollow tremulousness of age 
to render it profoundly impressive, but who spoke so dis- 
tinctly as to be heard by all present — “ My children, we do 
not know what will happen when we are young — all is 
young, too, that we see. It is when we grow old, that all 
grows old with us. Youth is full of hope; but age is full 
of eyes ; it sees things as they are. I have lived in my 
witTwam alone, since the Great Spirit called out the name 
of my mother, and she hurried away to the Happy Hunting- 
VoL. II. — 18 


THE REDSKINS. 


206 

Grounds to cook venison for my father, who was called 
first. My father was a great warrior. You did not know 
him. He was killed by the Delawares, more than a hun- 
dred winters ago. 

“ I have told you the truth. When my mother went 
to cook venison for her husband, I was left alone in my 
wigwam.” 

Here a long pause succeeded, during which Snsquesus 
appeared to be struggling with his own feelings, though ho 
continued erect, like a tree firmly rooted. As for the 
chiefs, most of them inclined their bodies forward to listen, 
so intense was their interest ; here and there one of their 
number explaining in soft guttural tones, certain passages 
in the speech to some other Indians, who did not fully com- 
prehend the dialect in which they were uttered. After a 
time, Susquesus proceeded : “ Yes, I lived alone. A young 
squaw was to have entered my wigwam and staid there. 
She never came. She wished to enter it, but she did not. 
Another warrior had her promise, and it was right that she 
should keep her word. Her mind was heavy at first, but 
she lived to feel that it is good to be just. No squaw has 
ever lived in any wigwam of mine. I did not think ever to 
be a father: but see how different it has turned out! I am 
now the father of all red-men I Every Indian warrior is 
my son. You are my children ,* I will own you when we 
meet on the pleasant paths beyond the hunts you make to- 
day. You will call me father, and I will call you sons. 

“ That will be enough. You ask me to go on the long 
path with you, and leave my bones on the prairies. I have 
heard of those hunting-grounds. Our ancient traditions 
told us of them. ‘ Towards the rising sun,’ they said, 
‘ is a great salt lake, and towards the setting sun, great 
lakes of sweet water. Across the great salt lake is a dis- 
tant country, filled with pale-faces, who live in large vil- 
lages, and in the midst of cleared fields. Towards the set- 
ting sun were large cleared fields, too, but no pale-faces, and 
few villages. Some of our wise men thought these fields 
were the fields of red-men following the pale-faces round 
after the sun; some thought they were fields in which the 
pale-faces were following them. I think this was the truth. 
The red-man cannot hide himself in any corner, where the 


THE REDSKINS. 207 

pale-face will not find him. The Great Spirit will have it 
so. It is his will ; the red-man must submit.’ 
j My sons, the journey you ask me to make is too long 

for old age. I have lived with the pale-faces, until one-half 
of my heart is white; though the other half is red. One- 
half is filled with the traditions of my fathers, the other half 
is filled with the wisdom of the stranger. I cannot cut my 
heart in two pieces. It must all go with you, or all stay 
I here. The body must stay with the heart, and both must 
! remain where they have now dwelt so long. I thank you, 
my children, but what you wish can never come to pass. 

“ You see a very old man, but you see a very unsettled 
mind. There are red traditions and pale-face traditions. 
Both speak of the Great Spirit, but only one speak of his 
son. A soft voice has been whUjxsring in my ear, lately, 
much of the Son of God. Do they speak to you in that way 
on the prairies? I know not what to think. — I wish to 
think what is right ; but it is not easy to understand.” 

Here Susquesus paused ; then he took his seat, with the 
air of one who was at a loss how to c.xplain his own feel- 
ings. Prairiefire waited a respectful tinw for him to con- 
tinue his address, but perceiving that he rose not, he stood 
up, himself, to request a further explanation. 

“ My father has spoken wisdom,” he said, “ and his chil- 
dren have listened. They have not heard enough ; they 
wish to hear more. If my father is tired of standing, he can 
sit ; his children do not ask him to stand. They ask to 
j know where that soft voice came from, and what it said ?” 

Susquesus did not rise, now, but he prepared for a reply, 
Mr. Warren was standing quite near him, and Mary was 
leaning on his arm. He signed for the father to advance a 
step or two, in complying with which, the parent brought 
forth the unconscious child also. 

“ See, my children,” resumed Susquesus. “ This is a 
great medicine of the pale-faces. He talks always of the 
Great Spirit, and of his goodness to men. It is his business 
to talk of the Happy Hunting-Ground, and of good and bad 
pale-faces. I cannot tell you whether he does any good or 
not. Many such talk of these things constantly among the 
whites, but I can see little change, and I have lived among 
them, now, more than eighty winters and summers — yes, 


THE REDSKINS. 


208 

near ninety. The land is changed so much, that I hardly 
know it ; but the people do not alter. See, there ; here are 
men — pale-faces in calico bags. Why do they run about, 
and dishonour the red-man by calling themselves Injins? I 
will tell you.” 

There was now a decided movement among the ‘virtuous 
and industrious,’ though a strong desire to hear the old man 
out, prevented any violent interruption at that time. I 
question if ever men listened more intently, than we all lent 
our faculties now, to ascertain what the Upright of the Onon- 
dagoes thought of anti-rentism. I received the opinions he 
expressed with the greater alacrity, because I knew he was 
a living witness of most of what he related, and because I 
was clearly of opinion that he knew quite as much of the 
subject as many who rose in the legislative halls to discuss 
the subject. 

“ These men are not warriors,” continued Susquesus. 
“ They hide their faces and they carry rifles, but they frighten 
none but the squaws and pappooses. When they take a scalp, 
it is because they are a hundred, and their enemies one. 
They are not braves. Why do they come at all? — What 
do they want? They want the land of this young chief. 
My children, all the land, far and near, was ours. The 
pale-faces came with their papers, and made laws, and said 
‘It is well ! We want this land. There is plenty farther 
west for you red-men. Go there, and hunt, and fish, and 
plant your corn, and leave us this land.’ Our red brethren 
did as they were asked to do. The pale-faces had it as 
they wished. They made laws, and sold the land, as the 
red-men sell the skins of beavers. When the money was 
paid, each pale-face got a deed, and thought he owned all 
that he had paid for. But the wicked spirit that drove out 
the red-man is now about to drive off the pale-face chiefs. 
It is the same devil, and it is no other. He wanted land 
then, and he wants land now. There is one difference, and 
it is this. When the pale-face drove off the red-man there 
was no treaty between them. They had not smoked toge- 
ther, and given wampum, and signed a paper. If they had, 
it was to agree^that the red-man should go away, and the 
pale-face stay. When the pale-face drives off the pale-face, 
there is a treaty ; they have smoked together, and given 


THE redskins. 


209 ' 

wampum, and signed a paper. This is the difference. In- 
dian will keep his word with Indian ; pale-face will not keep 
I his word with pale-face.” 

Susquesus stopped speaking, and the eye of every chief 
was immediately, and for the first time that morning, turned 
on the “ disguised and armed” — the “ virtuous and hard- • 
working.” A slight movement occurred in the band, but 
no outbreak took place ; and, in the midst of the sensation 
that existed, Eaglesflight slowly arose. The nature, dignity 
and ease of his manner more than compensated for his per- 
sonal appearance, and he now seemed to us all one of those 
by no means unusual instances of the power of the mind to 
overshadow, and even to obliterate, the imperfections of the 
body. Before the effect of what Susquesus had just said 
was lost, this eloquent and much-practised orator began his 
address. His utterance was highly impressive, being so 
deliberate, with pauses so well adjusted, as to permit Many- 
tongues to give full effect to each syllable he translated. 

“ My brethren,” said Eaglesflight, addressing the Injins 
and the other auditors, rather than any one else, “ you have 
heard the words of age. They are the words of wisdom. 
They are the words of truth. The Upright of the Onon- 
dagos cannot lie. He never could. The Great Spirit made 
I him a just Indian ; and, as the Great Spirit makes an In- 
dian, so he is. My brethren, I will tell you his story; it 
will be good for you to hear it. We have heard your story ; 
first from the interpreter, now from Susquesus. It is a bad 
stpry. We were made sorrowful when we heard it. What 
is right, should be done ; what is wrong, should not be done. 
There are bad red-men, and good red-men ; there are bad 
pale-faces, and good pale-faces. The good red-men and 
good pale-faces do what is right ; the bad, what is wrong, 
it is the same with both. The Great Spirit of the Indian 
and the Great Spirit of the white man are alike; so are the 
wicked spirits. There is no difference in this. 

“My brethren, a red-man knows in his heart when he 
does what is right, and when he does what is wrong. He 
does not want to be told, Pe tells himself. His face is 
red, and he cannot change colour. The paint is too thick. 
When he tells himself how much wrong he has done, he 
] 8 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


310 

goes into the bushes, and is sorry. When he comes out, he 
is a better man. 

“ My brethren, it is different with a pale-face. '' He is 
white, and uses no stones for paint. When he tells himself 
that he has done wrong, his face can paint itself. Every- 
body can see that he is ashamed. He does not go into the 
bushes ; it would do no good. He paints himself so quickly 
that there is no time. He hides his face in a calico bag. 
This is not good, but it is better than to be pointed at with 
the finger. 

“ My brethren, the Upright of the Onondagoes has never 
run into the bushes because he was ashamed. There has 
been no need of it. He has not told himself he was wicked 
He has not put his face in a calico bag ; he cannot paint 
himself, like a pale-face. 

“ My brethren, listen ; I will tell you a story. A long 
time ago everything was very different here. The clearings 
were small, and the woods large. Then the red-men were 
many, and the pale-faces few. Now it is different. You 
know how it is, to-day. 

“ My brethren, I am talking of what was a hundred win- 
ters since. We were not born, then. Susquesus was then 
young,* and strong, and active. He could run with the deer, 
and battle with the bear. He was a chief, because his fa- 
thers were chiefs before him. The Onondagoes knew him 
and loved him. Not a war-path was opened, that he was 
not the first to go on it. No other warrior could count so 
many scalps. No young chief had so many listeners at the 
Council-Fire. The Onondagoes were proud that they had 
so great a chief, and one so young. They thought he would I 
live a long time, and they should see him, and be proud of 
him for fifty winters more. 

“ My brethren, Susquesus has lived twice fifty winters 
longer; but he has not lived them with his own people. 

No ; he has been a stranger among the Onondagoes all that 
time. The warriors he knew are dead. The wigwams 
that he went into, have fa lien .to the earth with time; the 
graves have crumbled, and the^ns’ sons of his companions 
walk heavily with old age. Susquesus is there ; you see 
him ; he sees you. He can walk ; he speaks ; he sees : he 
is a living tradition ! Why is this so? — The Great Spirit 


THE REDSKINS. 


211 I 

has not called him away. He is a just Indian, and it is 1 

good that he be kept here, that all red-men may know how | 

much he is loved. So long as he slays, no red-man need | 

want a calico bag. j 

‘‘ My brethren, the younger days of Susquesus, the j 

Trackless, were happy. When he had seen twenty win- | 

ters, he was talked of in all the neighbouring tribes. The \ 

scalp notches were a great many. When he had seen thirty \ 

winters, no chief of the Onondagoes had more honour, or i 

more power. He was first among the Onondagoes. There ) 

was but one fault in him. He did not take a squaw into 1 

his wigwam. Death comes when he is not looked for; so \ 

does marriage. At length my father became like other ; 

men, and wished for a squaw. It happened in this way. | 
“ My brethren, red-men have laws, as well' as the pale- ? 
faces. If there is a difference, it is in keeping those laws. 

A law of the red-men gives every warrior his prisoners. If 
he bring off a warrior, he is his ; if a squaw, she is his. 
This is right. He can take the scalp of the warrior; he 
can take the squaw into his wigwam, if it be empty. A 
warrior, named Waterfowl, brought in a captive girl of the 
Delawares. She was called Ouithwith, and was handsomer 
than the humming-bird. The Waterfowl had his ears open, 
and heard how beautiful she was. He watched long to take . " 
her, -and he did take her. She was his, and he thought t6 • 
take her into his wigwam when it was empty. Three moons 
passed, before that could be. In the meantime, Susquesus 
saw Ouithwith, and Ouithwith saw Susquesus. Their eyes 
were never off each other. He was the noblest moose of 
the woods, in her eyes; she was the spotted-fawn, in his. 

He wished to ask her to his wigwam ; she wished to go. 

“ My brethren, Susquesus was a great chief; the Water- 
fowl was only a warrior. One had power and authority ; \ 

the other had neither. But there is authority among red- | 

men beyond that of the chief. It is the red-man’s law. \ 

Ouithwith belonged to the Waterfowl, and she did not be- ' 

long to Susquesus. A great council was held, and men dif- 1 

fered. Some said that so useful a chief, so renowned a \ 

warrior as Susquesus, ought to be the husband of Ouithwith; 
some said her husband ought to be the Waterfowl, for he 
had brought her out from among the Delawares. A great 


212 THE REDSKINS. 

difficulty arose on this question, and the whole Six Nations 
took part in it. Many warriors were fpr the law, but most 
were tor Susquesus. They loved him, and thought he would 
make the best husband for the Delaware girl. For six 
moons the quarrel thickened, and a dark cloud gathered 
over the path that led among the tribes. Warriors who had 
taken scalps in company, looked at each other, as the pan- 
ther looks at the deer. Some were ready to dig up the 
hatchet for the law ; some for the pride of the Onondagoes, 
and the Humming-Bird of the Delawares. The squaws look 
sides with Susquesus. Far and near, they met to talk to- 
gether, and they even threatened to light a Council-Fire, 
and smoke around it, like warriors and chiefs. 

“ Brethren, things could not stand so another moon. 
Ouithwith must go into the wigwam of the Waterfowl, or 
into the wigwam of Susquesus. The squaws said she should 
go into the wigwam of Susquesus ; and they met together, 
and led her to his door. As she went along that path, 
Ouithwith looked at her feet with her eyes, but her heart 
leaped like the bounding fawn, when playing in the sun. 
She did not go in at the door. The Waterfowl w’as there, 
and forbade it. He had come alone ; his friends w'ere but 
few, wTiile the heads and arms of the friends of Susquesus 
were as plenty as the berries on the bush. 

“ My brethren, that command of the Waterfowl’s was 
like a wall of rock before the door of the Trackless’s wig- 
wam. Ouithwith could not go in. The eyes of Susquesus 
said ‘no,’ while his heart said ‘ yes.’ He offered the Wa- 
terfowl his rifle, his powder, all his skins, his wigwam ; but 
Waterfowl w'ould rather have his prisoner, and answered, 
‘ no.’ ‘ Take my scalp,’ he said ; ‘ you are strong and can 
do it ; but do not take my prisoner.’ 

“ My brethren, Susquesus then stood up, in the midst of 
the tribe, and opened his mind. ‘ The Waterfowl is right,’ 
he said. ‘She is his, by our laws; and what the laws of 
the red-man say, the red-man must do. When the war- 
rior is about to be tormented, and he asks for time to go 
home and see his friends, does he not come back at the day 
and hour agreed on ? Shall T, Susquesus, the first chief of 
the Onondagoes, be stronger than the law ? No — my face 
would be for ever hid in the bushes, did that come to pass. 


THE REDSKINS. 213 

It should not be — it shall not be. Take her, Waterfowl; 
she -is yours. Deal kindly by her, for she is as tender as 
the wren when it first quits the nest. I must go into the 
woods for a while. When my mind is at peace, Susquesus 
will return. 

“ Brethren, the stillness in that tribe, while Susquesus was 
getting his rifle, and his horn, and his best moccasins, and 
his tomahawk, was like that which comes in the darkness. 
Men saw him go, but none dare follow. He left no trail, 
and he was called the Trackless. His mind was never at 
peace, for he never came back. Summer and winter came 
and went often before the Onondagoes heard of him among 
the pale-faces. All that time the Waterfowl lived with Ouith- 
with in his wigwam, and she bore him children. The chief 
was gone, but the law remained. Go you, men of the pale- 
faces, who hide your shame in calico bags, and do the same. 
Follow the example of an Indian — be honest, like the Upright 
of the Onondagoes!” 

While this simple narrative was drawing to a close, I 
could detect the signs of great uneasiness among the leaders 
of the “ calico bags.” The biting comparison between 
themselves and their own course, and an Indian and his 
justice, was intolerable to them, for nothing has more con- 
duced to the abuses connected with anti-rentism than the 
wide-spread delusion that prevails in the land concerning 
the omnipotency of the masses. The error is deeply rooted 
which persuades men that fallible parts can make an infal- 
lible whole. It was offensive to their self-*conceit, and me- 
nacing to their success. A murmur ran through the assem- 
bly, and a shout followed. The Injins rattled their rifles, 
most relying on intimidation to effect their purpose ; but a few 
seemed mfluenced by a Worse intention, and I have never 
doubted that blood would have been shed in the next minute, 
the Indians now standing to their arms, had not the sheriff 
of the county suddenly appeared on the piazza, with Jack 
Dunning at his elbow. This unexpected apparition produced 
a pause, during which the ‘disguised and armed’ fell back 
some twenty yards, and the ladies rushed into the house. As 
for my uncle and myself, we were as much astonished as 
any there at this interruption. 


214 


THE REDSKINS. 


CHAPTER XV. 

« Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 

A hate of tyrant and of knave, 

A love of right, a scorn of wrong. 

Of coward and of slave.” 

HaUeck's Wild Rose of Alloway 

Although experience has shown that the appearance of 
a sheriff is by no means a pledge of the appearance of a 
friend of the law in this anti-rent movement, in our instance 
the fact happened to be so. It was known to the ‘ disguised 
and armed’ that this functionary was disposed to do his duty.* 
One of the rank absurdities into which democracy has fallen, 
and democracy is no more infallible than individual demo- 
crats, has been to make the officers of the militia, and the 
sheriffs of counties, elective. The consequences are, that 
the militia is converted into a farce, and the execution of the 
laws in a particular county is very much dependent on the 
pleasure of that county to have them executed or not. The 
last is a capital arrangement for the resident debtor, for in- 
stance, though absent creditors are somewhat disposed to 
find feiult. But all this is of no great moment, since the 
theories for laws and governments in vogue just now are of 
such a character as would render laws and governments 
quite unnecessary at all, were they founded in truth. Re- 


* The editor may as well say here, that, for obvious reasons, the 
names, counties, &c., used in these manuscripts are feigned, the real 
localities being close enough to those mentioned for the double pur- 
poses of truth and fiction. As one of the “ honourable gentlemen” of 
the Legislature has quoted our references to ‘provincial’ feelings and 
notions, with a magnificence that proves how thoroughly he is a man 
of the world himself, we will tell all the rest of the human race, who 
may happen to read this book, that we have made this explanation lest 
that comprehensive view of things, which has hitherto been so eager, 
because a street and a house are named in the pages of a fiction, to 
suppose that everybody is to believe they know the very individual who 
dwelt in it, should fancy that our allusions are to this or that particular 
functionary. — Editor. 


THE REDSKINS. 


215 


i Btraints of all kinds can only be injurious when they are im- 
posed on perfectign ! 

The instant the commotion commenced, and the ladies 
I fled, I took Seneca and his fellow-prisoner by the arm, and 
led them into the library. This I did, conceiving it to be 
I unfair to keep prisoners in a situation of danger. This I 
I did, too, without reflecting in the least on anything but the 
j character of the act. Returning to the piazza immediately, 

I I was not missed, and was a witness of all that passed. 

As has been intimated, this particular sheriff was known 
I lo be unfavourable to the anti-rent movement, and, no one 
supposing he would appear in their midst unsupported, in such 
I a scene, the Injins fell back, thus arresting the danger of an 
immediate collision. It has since been privately intimated 
lo me, that some among them, after hearing the narrative of 
! Eaglesflight, really felt ashamed that a red-skin should have 
a more lively sense of justice than a white man. Whatever 
may be said of the hardships of the tenants, and of “ poodle 
usages,” and of ‘aristocracy,’ and ‘ fat hens,’ by the leaders 
in this matter, it by no means follows that those leaders be- 
lieve in their own theories and arguments. On the contrary. 

It is generally the case with such men, that they keep them- 
selves quite free from the excitement that it is their business 
to awaken in others, resembling the celebrated John Wilkes, 
who gravely said to George III., in describing the character 
of a former co operator in agitation, “ He was a Wilksite, 
sir ; I never was.” j 

The unexpected appearance of Dunning, the offending ! 
agent, too, was not without its effect, — for they who were I 
behind the curtains found it difficult to believe that he would j 

dare to show himself at Ravensnest without a sufficient sup- j 

port. Those who thought thus, however, did not know i 
Jack Dunning. He had a natural and judicious aversion j 
to being tarred and feathered, it is true ; but, when it was 
necessary to expose himself, no man did it more freely. The 
explanation of his unlooked-for arrival is simply this. 

Uneasy at our manner of visiting Ravensnest, this trust- 
worthy friend, after the delay of a day or two, determined 
I to follow us. On reaching the county he heard of the firing 
of the barn, and of the attempt on the house, and went in 
quest of the sheriff without a moment’s delay. As the ob 


THE IlEDSKINS. 


216 


ject of Dunning was to get the ladies out of the lion’s den, j 
he did not wait for the summoning of the posse comitatus; j 
but, hiring a dozen resolute fellows, they were armed, and ; 
all set out in a body for the Nest. When within a mile or 
two of the house, the rumour reached the party that we 
were besieged ; and it became expedient to have recourse to 
some manoeuvring, in order to throw succour into the gar- 
rison. Dunning was familiar with all the windings and 
I turnings of the place, having passed many a month at the 
i Nest with my uncle and father, both as man and boy , and 
i he knew the exact situation of the cliff, court, ^nd of the 

■ various peculiar features of the place. Among other arrange- 
! ments that had been made of late years, a door had been 

■ opened at the end of the long gallery which led through one j 
i of the wings, and a flight of steps been built against the 

j rocks, by means of which certain paths and walks that 
I meandered through the meadows and followed the windings 
I of the stream might be reached. Dunning determined to 
I attempt an ascent from this quarter, trusting to making him- 
I self heard by some one within., should he find the door fast- 
ened. Everything succeeded to his wishes, — the cook, 
alone, of all the household, being at her post in the other 
wing, and seeing him the instant he presented himself on 
the upper part of the steps. Jack Dunning’s face was so 
well known at the Nest," that the good woman did not hesi- 
tate a moment about admitting him, and he thus penetrated 
into the buildings, followed by all his party. The last he 
kept concealed by sending them into the’chambers, while 
he and the sheriff drew near the door, and heard most of 
the speech of Eaglesflight, the attention of everybody being 
given to the narrative. The reader knows the rest. 

I might as well say at once, however, that Opportunity, 
who, by her position, had seen the entrance of Dunning 
and his party, no sooner found herself alone- with the pri” 
soners, than she unbound them, and showed them the means 
of flight, by the same passage, door and steps. At least, 
such has been my supposition, for the sister has never been 
questioned on the subject. Seneca and his co-rascal va- 
nished, and have not since been seen in our part of the 
country. In consequence of the flight, no one has ever 
complained of either for arson. The murder of Steele, the 


THE REDSKINS 


217 

j deputy-sheriff of Delaware, has given a check to the ‘ Injin’ 

I system, and awakened a feeling in the country that was not 
I to be resisted, in that form at least, by men engaged in a 
scheme so utterly opposed to the first principles of honesty 
as anti-rentism. 

When I regained the piazza, after thrusting Seneca into 
the library, the Injins had fallen back to the distance of 
twenty or thirty yaj’ds from the piazza, in evident con- 
fusion ; while the Indians, cool and collected, stood to their 
arms, watchful as crouching panthers, but held in hand by the 
calmness with which their leaders watched the progress of 
events. The sheriff now required the first to disperse, as 
violaters of the law ; with the penalties of which he menaced 
them, in a voice sufficiently clear and distinct to make itself 
audible. There was a moment during which the Injins 
seemed undecided. They had come with the full intent to 
inflict on my uncle and myself the punishment of the tar- 
bucket, with the hope of frightening us into some sort of a 
compromise ; the cowardly expedient of a hundred men’s 
attacking and annoying one being particularly in favour 
svith a certain class of those ultra-friends of liberty, who 
fancy that they alone possess all the public virtue of the 
nation, which public virtue justifies any of their acts. All 
of a sudden, the entire body of these virtuous citizens, who 
found it necessary to hide their blushes beneath calico, fell 
rapidly back ; observing a little order at first, which soon 
degenerated, however, into confusion, and shortly after into 
a downright, scampering flight. The fact was, that Dun- 
ning’s men began to show themselves at the windows of 
i the chambers, thrusting muskets and rifles out before them, 

I and the ‘ disguised and armed,’ as has invariably been the 
I case in the anti-rent disturbances, exhibited a surprising 
i facility at the retreat. If he is ‘ thrice-armed who hath his 
; quarrel just,’ ten times is he a coward who hath his quarrel 
[ unjust. This is the simple solution of the cowardice that 
j has been so generally shown by those who have been en- 
j gaged in this ‘ Injin’ warfare; causing twenty to chase one, 

' secret attempts on the lives of sentinels, and all the other 
violations of manly feeling that have disgraced the proceed- 
, ings of the heroes. 

As soon as released from all immediate apprehension on 
VoL. II. — 19 


THE REDSKINS. 


j 218 

I the score of the Injins, we had time to attend to the Indians, j 
j These warriors gazed after those who were caricaturing 
their habits, and most of all their spirit, with silent con- | 
tempt ; and Prairiefire, who spoke a little English, said to me i 
with emphasis, “ Poor Injin — poor tribe ^ run away from 
own whoop !” This was positively every syllable the men 
of the prairies deigned to bestow on these disturbers of the 
public peace, the agents of covetousness, who prowl about 
at night, like wolves, ready to seize the stray lamb, but are 
quick to sneak off at the growl of the mastiff. One can- 
not express himself in terms too harsh of such wretches, 
i who in no instance have manifested a solitary spark of the 
true spirit of freemen; having invariably quailed before 
authority when that authority has assumed in the least the 
aspect of its power, and as invariably trampled it under foot, 
whenever numbers put danger out of the question. 

Old Susquesus had been a quiet observer of all that 
passed. He knew the nature of the disturbance, and under- 
stood everything material that was connected with the out- 
breaks. As soon as order was restored on the piazza, he 
rose once more to address his guests. 

“ My children,” he said, solemnly, “ you hear my voice 
for the last time. Even the wren cannot sing for ever. 
The very eagle’s wing gets tired in time. I shall soon cease 
to speak. When I reach the happy hunting-grounds of the 
Onondagoes, I will tell the warriors I meet there of your | 
visit. Your fathers shall know that their sons still love j 
justice. Let the pale-faces sign papers, and laugh at them i 

afterwards. The promise of a red-man is his law. If he is ! 

made a prisoner, and his conquerors wish to torment him, | 

they are too generous to do so without letting him go to his | 
tribe to take leave of his friends. When the time is reached, | 
he comes back. If he promises skins, he brings them, | 
though no law can follow into the woods to force him to do i 
i so. His promise goes with him; his promise is stronger ! 

i than chains — it brings him back. j 

i “ My children, never forget this. You are not pale-faces, | 

to say one thing and do another. What you say, you do. j 

When you make a law, you keep it. This is right. No 
red-man wants another’s wigwam. If he wants a wigwam, 
he builds one himself. It is not so with the pale-faces. 


THE REDSKINS. 219 

The man who has no wigwam tries to get away his neigh- 
bour’s. While he does this, he reads in his bible and goes 
to his church. I have sometimes thought, the more he reads 
and prays, the more he tries to get into his neighbour’s wig- 
wam. So it seems to an Indian, but it may not be so. 

“ My children, the red-man is his own master. He goes 
and comes as he pleases. If the young men strike the war- 
path, he can strike it, too. He can go on the war-path, or 
the hunt, or he can stay in his wigwam. All he has to do, 
is to keep his promise, not steal, and not to go into another 
red-man’s wigwam unasked. He is his own master. He 
does not say so; he is so. How is it with the pale-faces? 
They say they are free when the sun rises ; they say they 
are free when the sun is over their heads ; they say they 
are free when the sun goes down behind the hills. They 
never stop talking of their being their own masters. They 
talk of that more than they read their bibles. I have lived 
near a hundred winters among them, and know what they 
are. They do that ; then they take away another’s wig- 
wam. They talk of liberty ; then they say you shall have 
this farm, you shan’t have that. They talk of liberty, and 
call to one another to put on calico bags, that fifty men may 
tar and feather one. They talk of liberty, and want every- 
thing their own way. 

“ My children, these pale-faces might go back with you 
to the prairies, and learn to do what is right. I do not 
wonder they hide their faces in bags. They feel ashamed ; 
they ought to feel ashamed. 

“ My children, this is the last time you will hear my voice. 
The tongue of an old man cannot move for ever. This is 
my counsel : do what is right. The Great Spirit will tell 
you what that is. Let it be done. What my son said of 
me is true. It was hard to do ; the feelings yearned to do 
otherwise, but it was not done. In a little time peace came 
on my spirit, and I was glad. I could not go back to live 
among my people, for I was afraid of doing what was 
wrong. I staid among the pale-faces, and made friends here. 
My children, farewell ; do what is right, and you will be 
happier than the richest pale-face who does what is wrong.” 

Susquesus took his seat, and at the same time each of the 
redskins advanced and shook his hand. The Indians make 


THE RE DSKINS. 


220 

few professions, but let their acts speak for them. Not a 
syllable was uttered by one of those rude warriors as he 
took his leave of Susquesus. Each man had willingly paid 
this tribute to one whose justice and self-denial were cele- 
brated in their traditions, and having paid it, he went his 
way satisfied, if not altogether happy. Each man shook 
hands, too, with all on the piazza, and to us they expressed 
-their thanks for their kind treatment. My uncle Ro had 
distributed the remains of his trinkets among them, and they 
left us with the most amicable feelings. Still there was 
nothing dramatic in their departure. It was simple as 
their arrival. They had come to see the Upright of the 
Onondagoes, had fulfilled their mission, and were ready to 
depart. Depart they did, and as I saw their line winding 
along the highway, the episode of such a visit appeared to us 
all more like a dream than reality. No interruption occurred 
to, the return of these men, and half an hour after they had 
left the piazza we saw them winding their way up the hill, 
descending which we had first seen them. 

“ Weil, Hodge,” said Jack Dunning, two or three hours 
later, “ what is your decision ; will you remain here, or will 
you go to your own place in Westchester.” 

“ 1 will remain here until it is our pleasure to depart ; 
then we will endeavour to be as free as Indians, and go 
where we please, provided always we do not go into our 
neighbour’s wigwam against his will.” 

Jack Dunning smiled, and he paced the library once or 
twice before he resumed. 

“ They told me, as soon as I got into the county, that 
you, and all belonging to you, were preparing to retreat the 
morning after the attempt to fire your house.” 

“ One of those amiable perversions of the truth that so 
much embellish the morality of the whole afiair. What 
men wish, they fancy, and what they fancy, they say. The 
girls, even, protest they would not quit the house while it 
has a roof to cover their heads. But, Jack, whence comes 
this spirit?” 

“ I should think that was the last question a reasonably 
informed man need ask,” answered Dunning, laughing. “ It 
is very plain where it comes from. — It comes from the devil, 
and has every one of the characteristics of his handy work. 


THE REDSKINS. 


221 

In the first place, love of money, or covetousness, is at its 
root. Then lies are its agents. Its first and most pre- 
tending lie is that of liberty, every principle of which it 
tramples under foot. Then come in the fifty auxiliaries in 
the way of smaller inventions, denying the facts of the 
original settlement of the country, fabricating statements 
concerning its progress, and asserting directly in the teeth 
of truth, such statements as it is supposed will serve a turn."* 
There can be no mistaking the origin of such contrivances, 
or all that has been taught us of good and evil is a fiction. 
Really, Hodge, lam astonished that so sensible a man should 
have asked the question.” 

“ Perhaps you are right. Jack ; but to what will it lead ?” 

“Ay, that is not so easily answered. The recent events 
in Delaware have aroused the better feelings of the country, 
and there is no telling what it may do. One thing, how- 
ever, I hold to be certain ; the spirit connected with this 
affair must be put down, thoroughly, effectually, completely, 
or we are lost. Let it once be understood, in the country, 
that men can control their own indebtedness, and fashion 
contracts to suit their own purposes, by combinations and 
numbers, and pandemonium would soon be a paradise com- 

* The frightful propensity to effect its purposes by lying, has come 
to such a head in the country, as seriously to threaten the subversion 
of all justice. Without adverting to general facts, two circumstances 
directly connected with this anti-rent question, force themselves on my 
attention. They refer to large estates that were inherited by an 
Englishman, who passed ha>f of a long life in the country. In public 
legislative documents it has been pretended that the question of his 
title to his estates is still open, when the published reports of the 
highest court of the country show that a decision was made in 
his favour thirty years since; and, in reference to his heir, it has 
been otRcially staled that he has invariably refused to give any leases 
but such as run on lives. Now, it is of little moment whether this 
be true or not, since the law allows every ^man to do as he may 
please in this respect. But the fact, as I understand from the agent 
who draws the leases, is precisely the reverse of that which has been 
openly stated in this legislative document; the present possessor 
OF the estate in aUESTION, HAVING BEEN EARNESTEV SOLICITED 
BY THE TENANTS TO GRANT NEW LEASES ON LIVES, AND ABSOLUTELY 

REFUSED TO COMPLY ! In this instance the Legislature, doubtless, 
nave been deceived by the interested representations of anti-renters.— 
Editor. 

19 * 


THE REDSKINS. 


222 

pared to New York. There is not a single just ground of 
complaint in the nature of any of these leases, whatevei 
hardships may exist in particular cases but, admitting that 
there were false principles of social life, embodied in the re- 
lation of landlord and tenant, as it exists among us, ii would 
he a far greater evil to attempt a reform under such a 
comhinatiojiy than to endure the original wi'ong.^^ 

“ I suppose these gentry fancy themselves strong enough 
to thrust their interests into politics, and hope to succeed by 
that process. But anti-masonry, and various other schemes 
of that sort have failed, hitherto, and this may fail along 
with it. That is a redeeming feature of the institutions. 
Jack ; you may humbug for a time, but the humbuggery is 
not apt to last for ever. It is only to be regretted that the 
really upright portion of the community are so long in 
making themselves felt; would they only be one-half as 
active as the miscreants, we should get along well enough.” 

“ The result is unknown. The thing may be put down, 
totally, effectually, and in a way to kill the snake, not scotch 
it; or it may be met with only half-way measures; in which 
case it will remain like a disease in the human system, 
always existing, always menacing relapses, quite possibly to 
be the agent of the final destruction of the body.” 

My uncle, nevertheless, was as good as his word, and did 
remain in the county, where he is yet. Our establishment 
has received another reinforcement, however, and a change 
occurred, shortly after our visit from the Injins, in the policy 
of the anti-renters, the two giving us a feeling of security 
that might otherwise have been wanting. The reinforce- 
ment came from certain young men, who have found their 
way across from the springs, and become guests at the Nest. 
They are all old acquaintances of mine, most of them school- 
fellows, and also admirers of the young ladies. Each of my 
uncle’s wards, the Cgldbrooke and the Marston, has an ac- 
cepted lover, as we now discovered, ciicumstances that have 
left me unobstructed in pursuing my suit with Mary Warren. 
I have found Patt a capital ally, for she loves the dear girl 
almost as much as I do myself, and has been of great service 
in the affair. I am conditionally accepted, though Mr. War- 
ren’s consent has not been asked. Indeed, I much question 
if fne good rector has the least suspicion of what is in the 


k 


THE REDSKINS. 223 

wind. As for my uncle Ro, he knew all about it, though I 
; have never breathed a syllable to him on the subject. For- 
! tunately, he is well satisfied with the choice made by his two 
wards, and this has somewhat mitigated the disappointment. 

My uncle Ro is not in the least mercenary ; and the cir- 
cumstance that Mary Warren has not a cent, gives him no 
concern. He is, indeed, so rich himself that he knows it is 
m his power to make any reasonable addition to my means, 
and, if necessary, to place me above the dangers of anti- 
rentism. The following is a specimen of his humour, and 
of his manner of doing things when the humour takes him. 
W e were in the library one morning, about a week after the 
j Injins were shamed out of the field by the Indians, for that 
I was the secret of their final disappearance from our part of 
j the country ; but, one morning, about a week after their last 
I visit, my grandmother, my uncle, Patt and I were seated in 
i the library, chatting over matters and things, when my 
! uncle suddenly exclaimed — 

I “ By the way, Hugh, I have a piece of important news to 
I communicate to you ; news affecting your interests to the 
I tune of fifty thousand dollars.” 

: “ No more anti-rent dangers, I hope, Roger ?” said my 

I grandmother, anxiously. 

i “ Hugh has little to apprehend from that source, just now. 
The Supreme Court of the United States is his buckler, and 
it is broad enough to cover his whole body. As for his fu- 
ture leases, if he will take my advice, he will not grant one 
I for a term longer than five years, and then his tenants will 
become clamorous petitioners to the legislature to allow them 
to make their own bargains. Shame will probably bring 
your free-trade-men round, and the time will come when 
your double-distilled friends of liberty will begin to see it is 
a very indifferent sort of freedom which will not permit a 
wealthy landlord to part with his farms for a long period, or 
a poor husbandman to make the best bargain in his power. 
No, no ; Hugh has nothing serious to apprehend, just now 
at least, from that source, whatever may come of it here- 
after. The loss to which I allude is much more certain, and 
to the tune of fifty thousand dollars, I repeat.” 

“ That is a good deal of money for me to lose, sir,” I 
answered, but little disturbed by the intelligence; “and’i 


224 THE REDSKINS. 

might embarrass me to raise so large a sum in a hurry. 
Nevertheless, I confess to no very great concern on the | 
subject, notwithstanding your announcement. I have no j 
debts, and the title to all I possess is indisputable, unless it i 
shall be decided that a royal grant is not to be tolerated by | 
republicans.” j 

“ All very fine. Master Hugh, but you forget that you are j 
the natural heir of my estate. Patt knows that she is to | 
have a slice of it when she marries, and 1 am now about to j 
make a settlement of just as much more on another young i 
lady, by way of marriage portion.” i 

“ Roger !” exclaimed my grandmother, “ you surely do j 
not mean what you say ! Of as much more !” ; 

“ Of precisely that money, my dear mother. I have 
taken a fancy to a young lady, and as I cannot marry her 
myself, I am determined to make her a good match, so far 
as money is concerned, for some one else.” 

“ But why not marry her yourself?” I asked. “ Older 
men than yourself marry every day.” 

“ Ay, widowers, I grant you ; they will marry until they 
are a thousand ; but it is not so with us bachelors. Let a 
man once get fairly past forty, and it is no easy matter to 
bring him to the sacrifice. No, .Tack Dunning’s being here 
is the most fortunate thing in the world, and so I have set 
him at work to draw up a settlement on the young lady to 
whom I refer, without any rights to her future husband, let 
him turn out to be whom he may.” 

“ It is Mary Warren !” exclaimed my sister, in a tone of 
delight. 

My uncle smiled, and he tried to look demure ; but I can- 
not say that he succeeded particularly well. 

“ It is — it is — it is Mary Warren, and uncle Ro means to 
give her a fortune !’’ added Patt, bounding across the floor 
like a young deer, throwing herself into her guardian’s lap, 
hugging and kissing him, as if she were nothing but a child, 
though a fine young woman of nineteen. “ Yes, it is Mary 
Warren, and uncle Hodge is a delightful old gentleman — 
no, a delightful young gentleman, and were he only thirty 
years younger he should have his own heiress for a wife 
himself. Good, dear, generous, sensible uncle Ro. — This 


THE REDSKINS. 225 

IS SO like him, after all his disappointment; for I know, 
Hugh, his heart was set on your marrying Henrietta,” 

“And what has my marrying, or not marrying Henrietta, 
to do with this settlement of fifty thousand dollars on Miss 
Warren? The young ladies are not even connected, I be- 
lieve.” 

• “ Oh ! you know how all such things are managed,” said 
Patt, blushing and laughing at the passing allusion to 
matrimony, even in another ; “ Mary W arren will not be 
Mary Warren always.” 

“ Who will she be, then?” demanded uncle Ro, quickly. 

But Patt was too true to the rights and privileges of her 
sex to say anything directly that might seem to commit her 
friend. She patted her uncle’s cheek, therefore, like a saucy 
minx as she was, coloured still higher, looked archly at 
me, then averted her eyes consciously, as if betraying a se- 
cret, and returned to her seat as demurely as if the subject 
had been one of the gravest character. 

“ But are you serious in what you have told us, Roger ?” 
asked my grandmother, with more interest than I supposed 
the dear old lady would be apt to feel on such a subject. 
“ Is not this settlement a matter of fancy ?” 

“ True as the gospel, my dear mother.” 

“And is Martha right? Is Mary Warren really the fa- 
voured young lady?” 

“ For a novelty, Patt is right.” 

“ Does Mary Warren know of your intention, or has her 
father been consulted in the matter ?” 

“ Both know of it ; we had it all over together, last eve- 
ning, and Mr. Warren consents'’* 

“ To what ?” I cried, springing to my feet, the emphasis 
on the last word being too significant to be overlooked. 

“ To receive Hugh Roger Littlepage, which is my own 
name, recollect, for a son-in-law ; and what is more, the 
young lady ‘ is agreeable.’ ” 

“We all know that she is more than agreeable,” put in 
Patt ; “ she is delightful, excellent ; agreeable is no word to 
apply to Mary Warren.” 

“ Pshaw, girl ! If you had travelled, now, you would 
know that this expression is cockney English for agreeing to 
a thing. Mary Warren agrees to become the wife of Hugh 


THE REDSKINS. 


226 

Roger Littlepage, and I settle fifty thousand dollars on her, 
in consideration of matrimony.” 

“ This Hugh Roger Littlepage,” cried Patt, throwing an 
arm around my neck ; “ not that Hugh Roger Littlepage. 

Do but add that, dearest, dearest uncle, and I will kiss you 
for an hour.” 

“ Excuse me, my child ; a fourth of that time would be j 

as much as I could reasonably expect. I believe you are | 

right, however, as I do not remember that this Hugh Roger | 

had any connection with the affair, unless it were to give | 

his money. I shall deny none of your imputations.” j 

Just as this was said, the door of the library was slowly | 
opened, and Mary Warren appeared. The moment she 
saw who composed our party, she would have drawn back, 
but my grandmother kindly bade her “ come in.” 

“ I was afraid of disturbing a family party, ma’am,” Mary 
timidly answered. 

Patt darted forward, threw her arm around Mary’s waist, j 
and drew her into the room, closing and locking the door. 

All this was done in a way to attract attention, and as if the 
young lady wished to attract attention. We all smiled but 
Mary, who seemed half pleased, half frightened. 

“ It is a family party,” cried Patt, kissing her affianced 
sister, “ and no one else shall be admitted to it, unless good j 
Mr. Warren come to claim his place. Uncle Ro has told us 
all about it, and we know all.” 

Mary hid her face in Patt’s bosom, but it was soon drawn 
out by my dear grandmother to kiss it ; then my uncle had his 
turn, and Patt her’s. After this, the whole party, except 
Mary and I, slid out of the room, and — yes, and then it 
was my turn. 

We are not yet married, but the day is named. The 
same is true with respect to the two wards, and even Patt 
blushes, and my grandmother smiles, occasionally, when 
gentlemen who are travelling in Egypt just now, are named. 
The last letters from young Beckman, they tell me, say that 
he was then there. The three marriages are to take place 
in St. Andrew’s church, Mr. Warren being engaged to offi- 
ciate. 

The reader will be surprised to hear two things. My en- 
gagement with the daughter of a poor clergyman has pro- 


THE REDSKINS. 227 

duced great scandal among the anti-renters, tliey who so 
loudly decry aristocracy ! The objection is that the match 
is not equal ! That equality which is the consequence of 
social position, connections, education and similarity of 
habits, thoughts, and, if you will, prejudices, is all thrown 
away on these persons. They have no notion of its exist- 
ence ; but they can very well understand that the owner of 
an unencumbered and handsome estate is richer than the 
heiress of a poor divine, who can just make the year meet 
on $500 per annum. I let them grumble, as I know they 
must and will find fault with something connected with my- 
self, until they have got away my land, or are satisfied it is 
not to be had. As for Opportunity, I have been assured that 
she threatens to sue me for a “ breach of promise nor 
should I be at all surprised were she actually to make the 
attempt. It is by no means unusual, when a person sets his 
or her whole soul on a particular object, to imagine circum- 
stances favourable to his or her views, which never had an 
existence; and Opportunity may fancy that what I have 
heard has been “ the buzzing in her own ear.” Then the 
quackery of legislatures has set the ladies at work in earnest, 
and he will soon be a fortunate youth who can pass through 
his days of celibacy without some desperate assault, legal or 
moral, from the other sex. Besides, nothing can be out of 
the way, when it is found that the more popular and most 
numerous branch of the Legislature of New York really 
believes it can evade that solemn provision of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, which says “ no state shall pass 
any laV impairing the obligations of contracts,” by enacting, 
as they can regulate the statute of descent, that whenever a 
landlord dies, the tenant, by applying to the chancellor, can 
have his leasehold tenure converted into a mortgage, on dis- 
charging which the land will be his, unencumbered ! We 
have heard of a “ thimble-rig administration” in England, 
and really that industrious nation seems to have exported 
the breed to this country. How many of those who voted 
for such a law will like to see the ays and noes on the 
journals of the assembly ten years hence 1 If there should 
be one such man left in the state, he will be an object of 
humane commiseration. We have had many efibrts at 
legislative chicanery, and some that have been tolerably clever ; 


THE REDSKINS. 


22S 

but this is a palpable experiment in the same way, made foi 
a reason that everybody understands, that has not even the 
negative merit of ingenuity. Our own courts will probably 
disregard it, should the Senate even concur ; and as for those 
of the United States, they will, out of all doubt, treat it as it 
ought to be treated, and brand it with ignominy. The next step 
will be to pass a law regulating descents, as it is called, un- 
der the provisions of which the debtors of the deceased can 
meet his obligations with a coin technically called “ puppies.” 

Jaaf drivels away. The black occasionally mumbles out 
his sentiments concerning past events, and the state of the 
country. An anti-renter he regards as he would a thief, and 
makes no bones of saying so. Sometimes he blunders on a 
very good remark in connection with the subject, and one 
he made no later than yesterday, is worthy of notice. 

“ What dem feller want, Masser Hugh V’ he demanded. 
“ Dey ’s got one half of deir farms, and now dey wants tud- 
der half. S’pose I own a cow, or a sheep, in par’nership, 
what right I got to say I will have him all 1 Gosh ! dere 
no sich law in ole time. Den, who ebber see sich poor In- 
jin ! Redskin mis’rubble enough, make ’e bess of him, but 
dis Injin so mis’rubble dat I doesn’t won’er you can’t bear 
him. Oh ! how ole I do git — I do t’ink ole Sus can’t last 
much longer, too !” 

Old Susquesus still survives, but an object of great hatred 
to all the anti-renters, far and near. The ‘Injin’ system has 
been broken up, temporarily at least, but the spirit which 
brought it into existence survives under the hypocritical 
aspect of “ human rights.” The Upright of the Ononda- 
goes is insensible of the bad feeling which is so active 
against him, nor is it probable that most of those who enter- 
tain this enmity are conscious of the reason ; which is 
simply the fact that, he is a man who respected laws to the 
making of*which he was a party, and preferred to sutler 
rather than to be guilty of an act of injustice. 


i NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 

I 

I Here the manuscript of Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepagej jun., 
terminates. That gentleman’s feelings have probably for- 
bidden his relating events so recent as those which have 
since occurred. It remains, therefore, for us to add a few 
words. 

Jaaf died about ten days since, railing at the redskins to 
the last, and talking about his young massers and missuses 
as long as he had breath. As for his own descendants, he 
had not been heard to name them^ for the last forty years. 

Susquesus still survives, but the “ Injins” are all defunct. 
Public opinion has, at last, struck that tribe out of existence, 
and it is hoped that their calico bags have been transmitted 
to certain politicians among us, who, as certain as the sun 
I rises and sets, will find them useful to conceal their own i 

i countenances, when contrition and shame come, as contrition j 

I and shame will be sure to succeed such conduct as theirs. j 

I It may be well to add a word on the subject of the tone | 

I of this book. It is the language of a man who feels that ho | 

j has been grievously injured, and who writes with the ardour | 

! of youth increased by the sense of wrong. As editors, we 

j have nothing more to do with that than to see, while calling 

things by their right names, that language too strong for the 
public taste should not be introduced into our pages. As to 
the moral and political principles connected with this matter, 
we are wholly of the side of the Messrs. Littlepages, though 
we do not think it necessary to adopt all their phrases — ^ 
phrases that may be natural to men in their situations, but 
which w'ould be out of place, perhaps, in the mouths of those | 
who act solely in the capacity of essayists and historians. | 
To conclude: — Mr. Littlepage and Mary Warren were 
married, in St. Andrew’s church, a very few days since. 

We met the young gentleman, on his wedding tour, no later 
VoL. II. — 20 (* 29 ) 


230 


NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 


than yesterday, and he assured us that, provided with such 
a companion, he was ready to change his domicile to any 
other part of the Union, and that he had selected Washing- 
ton, for the express purpose of being favourably situated for 
trying the validity of the laws of the United States, as op- 
: posed to the “ thimble-rigging” of the New York Legisla- 

ture. It is his intention to have every question connected 
with the covenants of his leases, that of taxing the landlord 
for property on which the tenant has covenanted to pay all 
taxes ; that of distress for rent, when distress must precede 
the re-entry stipulated for by the leases ; and that of any 
other trick or device which the brains of your “ small-potato” 
legislator may invent in order to wrong him out of his pro- 
perty. As for ourselves, we can only say, God give him 
success ! for we are most deeply impressed that the more 
valuable parts of the institutions of this country can be pre- 
served only by crushing into the dust this nefarious spirit 
of cupidity, which threatens the destruction of all moral 
feeling, and every sense of right, that remains among us. 

In our view, Oregon, Mexico, and Europe, united against us, 
do not threaten this nation with one-half as much real danger 
as that which menaces it at this moment, from an enemy 
that is now in possession of many of its strong-holds, and 
which is incessantly working its evil under the cry of 
liberty, while laying deeper the foundation of a most atrocious 
tyranny. 

I forgot to add, Mr. Littlepage significantly remarkea, 
at parting, that should Washington fail him, he has the 
refuge of Florence open, wFere he can reside among the 
other victims of oppression, with the advantage of being ad 
mired as a refugee from republican tyranny. 
















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